SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Courage Invest (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Courage Invest is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Courage Invest can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Courage Invest, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Courage Invest
2. Improving business portfolio management of Courage Invest
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Courage Invest
Strengths of Courage Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Courage Invest are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Courage Invest 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Courage Invest is one of the leading players in the industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Courage Invest in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Courage Invest in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Courage Invest 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of Singapore 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 brand equity
– Courage Invest has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Courage Invest to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Courage Invest is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Courage Invest has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Organizational Resilience of Courage Invest
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Courage Invest does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Courage Invest is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Courage Invest is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Courage Invest 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Courage Invest 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Courage Invest comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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 Courage Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Courage Invest are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Courage Invest is just above the industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Courage Invest needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Courage Invest can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Courage Invest is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Courage Invest has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Courage Invest lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Courage Invest 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Courage Invest 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Courage Invest has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Courage Invest has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Courage Invest should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Courage Invest is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Courage Invest, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Courage Invest has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Courage Invest needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Courage Invest ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Courage Invest still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Courage Invest has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Courage Invest Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Courage Invest are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Courage Invest has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Courage Invest to build a more holistic ecosystem for Courage Invest products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Courage Invest 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Courage Invest 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 industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Courage Invest can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Courage Invest 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Courage Invest 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. Courage Invest 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Courage Invest can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Courage Invest 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Courage Invest can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Courage Invest can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Courage Invest has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Courage Invest to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Courage Invest to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Courage Invest External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Courage Invest are -
Environmental challenges
– Courage Invest needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Courage Invest can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the 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.
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 Courage Invest in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Courage Invest may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest prominent markets.
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 Courage Invest.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Courage Invest 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Courage Invest can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Courage Invest 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 industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Courage Invest with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Courage Invest 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 industry regulations.
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 Courage Invest business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Courage Invest needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Courage Invest Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest 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 Courage Invest needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
