Cashbil (CSBJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Home Improvement)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cashbil (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cashbil is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cashbil can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cashbil, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cashbil 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 Cashbil can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cashbil
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cashbil
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Retail (Home Improvement) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cashbil
Strengths of Cashbil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cashbil are -
Analytics focus
– Cashbil 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 (Home Improvement) industry. The technology infrastructure of South Africa 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cashbil 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 Cashbil comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cashbil
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cashbil does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Home Improvement) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cashbil digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cashbil 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cashbil has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Home Improvement) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cashbil have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cashbil has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cashbil staying ahead in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Cashbil 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cashbil in Retail (Home Improvement) 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 Cashbil 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.
Learning organization
- Cashbil 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 Cashbil is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cashbil emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cashbil in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Cashbil has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cashbil to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Cashbil | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cashbil are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cashbil has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry over the last five years. Cashbil 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cashbil has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Cashbil should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cashbil is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry, but Cashbil needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cashbil to focus more on services in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cashbil 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cashbil products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cashbil needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cashbil needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cashbil can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cashbil is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Cashbil 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cashbil, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cashbil 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 (Home Improvement) industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cashbil, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Home Improvement) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cashbil has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Cashbil is just above the Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Cashbil Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cashbil are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cashbil 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cashbil 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cashbil 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.
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. Cashbil can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cashbil 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 Cashbil to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Cashbil can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cashbil can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cashbil operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Home Improvement) sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Home Improvement) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cashbil can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cashbil can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cashbil has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Home Improvement) industry. This can help Cashbil to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cashbil products in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cashbil can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cashbil has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Home Improvement) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cashbil to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cashbil to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cashbil is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cashbil can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Home Improvement) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Cashbil External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cashbil are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cashbil 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 Retail (Home Improvement) industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Home Improvement) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cashbil can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cashbil has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Home Improvement) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cashbil needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Cashbil 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 Retail (Home Improvement) industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Home Improvement) industry are lowering. It can presents Cashbil with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Home Improvement) sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cashbil 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 Cashbil prominent markets.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cashbil in Retail (Home Improvement) industry. The Retail (Home Improvement) 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cashbil is facing in Retail (Home Improvement) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Cashbil
– 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 Cashbil.
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 Cashbil in the Retail (Home Improvement) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cashbil 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cashbil Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cashbil 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 Cashbil 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 Cashbil 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 Cashbil 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 Cashbil needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.