Cycle Carriage Bintang (CYCB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Specialty)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cycle Carriage Bintang (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cycle Carriage Bintang is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cycle Carriage Bintang
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cycle Carriage Bintang can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cycle Carriage Bintang, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cycle Carriage Bintang
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cycle Carriage Bintang
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cycle Carriage Bintang
Strengths of Cycle Carriage Bintang | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cycle Carriage Bintang are -
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Specialty) industry
– Cycle Carriage Bintang is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Cycle Carriage Bintang is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cycle Carriage Bintang has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cycle Carriage Bintang has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cycle Carriage Bintang staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cycle Carriage Bintang in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Training and development
– Cycle Carriage Bintang has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cycle Carriage Bintang is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cycle Carriage Bintang has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cycle Carriage Bintang have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Retail (Specialty) industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cycle Carriage Bintang
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cycle Carriage Bintang does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Cycle Carriage Bintang | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cycle Carriage Bintang are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Specialty) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
High dependence on Cycle Carriage Bintang ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cycle Carriage Bintang still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cycle Carriage Bintang has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cycle Carriage Bintang has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Retail (Specialty) industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cycle Carriage Bintang is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, but Cycle Carriage Bintang needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cycle Carriage Bintang to focus more on services in the Retail (Specialty) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cycle Carriage Bintang, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Specialty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cycle Carriage Bintang has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cycle Carriage Bintang has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Employees’ less understanding of Cycle Carriage Bintang strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
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 Cycle Carriage Bintang supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Cycle Carriage Bintang is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cycle Carriage Bintang vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cycle Carriage Bintang is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cycle Carriage Bintang to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Cycle Carriage Bintang Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cycle Carriage Bintang are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Cycle Carriage Bintang can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cycle Carriage Bintang in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Cycle Carriage Bintang can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cycle Carriage Bintang has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Cycle Carriage Bintang to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cycle Carriage Bintang products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cycle Carriage Bintang can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cycle Carriage Bintang operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
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 Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Specialty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cycle Carriage Bintang 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. Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Cycle Carriage Bintang can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cycle Carriage Bintang can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Cycle Carriage Bintang to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cycle Carriage Bintang can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Specialty) 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.
Threats Cycle Carriage Bintang External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cycle Carriage Bintang are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cycle Carriage Bintang in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Cycle Carriage Bintang with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.
Increasing wage structure of Cycle Carriage Bintang
– 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cycle Carriage Bintang can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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. Cycle Carriage Bintang 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.
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 Cycle Carriage Bintang in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
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. Cycle Carriage Bintang needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cycle Carriage Bintang has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cycle Carriage Bintang needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cycle Carriage Bintang is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cycle Carriage Bintang Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang 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 Cycle Carriage Bintang needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
