Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CH Bailey PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CH Bailey PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CH Bailey PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CH Bailey PLC operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of CH Bailey PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CH Bailey PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of CH Bailey PLC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Hotels & Motels sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CH Bailey PLC
Strengths of CH Bailey PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CH Bailey PLC are -
Ability to lead change in Hotels & Motels
– CH Bailey PLC is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Hotels & Motels industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled CH Bailey PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- CH Bailey PLC is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at CH Bailey PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CH Bailey PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CH Bailey PLC is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Digital Transformation in Hotels & Motels industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CH Bailey PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CH Bailey PLC has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Successful track record of launching new products
– CH Bailey PLC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CH Bailey PLC has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Analytics focus
– CH Bailey PLC is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Diverse revenue streams
– CH Bailey PLC is present in almost all the verticals within the Hotels & Motels industry. This has provided CH Bailey PLC a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CH Bailey PLC in Hotels & Motels industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CH Bailey PLC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CH Bailey PLC staying ahead in the Hotels & Motels industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Hotels & Motels industry
– CH Bailey PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CH Bailey PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Hotels & Motels industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CH Bailey PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CH Bailey PLC has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– CH Bailey PLC has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Hotels & Motels industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of CH Bailey PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of CH Bailey PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CH Bailey PLC are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that CH Bailey PLC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Hotels & Motels industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CH Bailey PLC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CH Bailey PLC is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of CH Bailey PLC strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CH Bailey PLC don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of CH Bailey PLC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Hotels & Motels industry, but CH Bailey PLC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help CH Bailey PLC to focus more on services in the Hotels & Motels industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Hotels & Motels industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, CH Bailey PLC is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Hotels & Motels industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CH Bailey PLC has some of the most successful models in the Hotels & Motels industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CH Bailey PLC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CH Bailey PLC has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry over the last five years. CH Bailey PLC even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, CH Bailey PLC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of CH Bailey PLC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, CH Bailey PLC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CH Bailey PLC is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Hotels & Motels industry in last five years.
High dependence on CH Bailey PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CH Bailey PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Hotels & Motels industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CH Bailey PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of CH Bailey PLC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CH Bailey PLC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CH Bailey PLC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
CH Bailey PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CH Bailey PLC are -
Developing new processes and practices
– CH Bailey PLC can develop new processes and procedures in Hotels & Motels industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, CH Bailey PLC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CH Bailey PLC can utilize new technology in the field of Hotels & Motels industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CH Bailey PLC to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for CH Bailey PLC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Hotels & Motels industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. CH Bailey PLC can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. CH Bailey PLC can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help CH Bailey PLC to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CH Bailey PLC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Hotels & Motels industry. This can help CH Bailey PLC to build a more holistic ecosystem for CH Bailey PLC products in the Hotels & Motels industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help CH Bailey PLC to increase its market reach. CH Bailey PLC will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Buying journey improvements
– CH Bailey PLC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Hotels & Motels industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– CH Bailey PLC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Hotels & Motels sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled CH Bailey PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CH Bailey PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CH Bailey PLC can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– CH Bailey PLC can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CH Bailey PLC can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Hotels & Motels industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. CH Bailey PLC can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats CH Bailey PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CH Bailey PLC are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for CH Bailey PLC in the Hotels & Motels sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that CH Bailey PLC is facing in Hotels & Motels sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Hotels & Motels industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. CH Bailey PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. CH Bailey PLC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Hotels & Motels industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CH Bailey PLC can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate CH Bailey PLC prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– CH Bailey PLC needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Hotels & Motels industry regulations.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Hotels & Motels industry are lowering. It can presents CH Bailey PLC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Hotels & Motels sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CH Bailey PLC in Hotels & Motels industry. The Hotels & Motels industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CH Bailey PLC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Hotels & Motels sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. CH Bailey PLC will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CH Bailey PLC high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CH Bailey PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CH Bailey PLC needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of CH Bailey PLC is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of CH Bailey PLC is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of CH Bailey PLC to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that CH Bailey PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
