Chamberlin (CMH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Iron & Steel
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Chamberlin (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Chamberlin is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Chamberlin can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chamberlin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Chamberlin
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chamberlin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Iron & Steel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Chamberlin
Strengths of Chamberlin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chamberlin are -
Digital Transformation in Iron & Steel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Chamberlin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Chamberlin 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.
Training and development
– Chamberlin has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Iron & Steel industry
– Chamberlin has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chamberlin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Iron & Steel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chamberlin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Chamberlin has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Chamberlin staying ahead in the Iron & Steel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Chamberlin are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Chamberlin has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chamberlin to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Iron & Steel industry
– Chamberlin is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chamberlin in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Chamberlin has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chamberlin to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Chamberlin emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Chamberlin 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 Iron & Steel 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Chamberlin 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Chamberlin comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Iron & Steel industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Weaknesses of Chamberlin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Chamberlin are -
Need for greater diversity
– Chamberlin has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Chamberlin needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Chamberlin has high operating costs in the Iron & Steel industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Chamberlin lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Chamberlin, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Iron & Steel industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Chamberlin is one of the leading players in the Iron & Steel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Iron & Steel industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Chamberlin has some of the most successful models in the Iron & Steel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Chamberlin should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Chamberlin, in the dynamic environment of Iron & Steel industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Chamberlin has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Iron & Steel industry, Chamberlin needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ less understanding of Chamberlin strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Chamberlin 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chamberlin is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Chamberlin to provide better information regarding Iron & Steel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Iron & Steel industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Chamberlin has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Chamberlin Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Chamberlin are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Chamberlin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Iron & Steel industry. This can help Chamberlin to build a more holistic ecosystem for Chamberlin products in the Iron & Steel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Iron & Steel industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Chamberlin can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Iron & Steel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Chamberlin 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. Chamberlin 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Chamberlin to increase its market reach. Chamberlin 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Chamberlin can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Iron & Steel sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– Chamberlin has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chamberlin to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Chamberlin can develop new processes and procedures in Iron & Steel 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Chamberlin can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Iron & Steel industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chamberlin has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Iron & Steel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Chamberlin to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chamberlin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Chamberlin in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Iron & Steel industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Chamberlin 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.
Threats Chamberlin External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Chamberlin are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Chamberlin is facing in Iron & Steel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Chamberlin demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Iron & Steel industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Chamberlin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Iron & Steel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Chamberlin needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Iron & Steel sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Chamberlin can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Iron & Steel industry.
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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Chamberlin business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Chamberlin
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Chamberlin.
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 Chamberlin in the Iron & Steel sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Iron & Steel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Chamberlin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chamberlin 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.
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. Chamberlin 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Iron & Steel industry are lowering. It can presents Chamberlin with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Iron & Steel sector.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Chamberlin.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Chamberlin Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin 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 Chamberlin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
