Granprade (GPLJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Casinos & Gaming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Granprade (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Granprade is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Granprade can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Granprade, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Granprade 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 Granprade can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Granprade
2. Improving business portfolio management of Granprade
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Casinos & Gaming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Granprade
Strengths of Granprade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Granprade are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Granprade has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Granprade staying ahead in the Casinos & Gaming 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 Granprade in Casinos & Gaming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Casinos & Gaming industry
– Granprade is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Granprade 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
- Granprade 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 Granprade is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Granprade emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Granprade has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Casinos & Gaming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Granprade have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Casinos & Gaming industry
– Granprade has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Granprade to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Granprade to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Granprade 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.
High brand equity
– Granprade has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Granprade to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Casinos & Gaming industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Granprade digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Granprade 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.
Ability to lead change in Casinos & Gaming
– Granprade is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Casinos & Gaming industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Granprade in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Granprade is one of the most innovative firm in Casinos & Gaming sector.
Weaknesses of Granprade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Granprade are -
Need for greater diversity
– Granprade 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Casinos & Gaming industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Africa, Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Granprade products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Granprade 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 Granprade needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Casinos & Gaming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Granprade can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Granprade is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Granprade, in the dynamic environment of Casinos & Gaming industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Granprade has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Granprade has some of the most successful models in the Casinos & Gaming industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Granprade should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Granprade, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Casinos & Gaming 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Granprade is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Granprade to provide better information regarding Casinos & Gaming products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Granprade has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Granprade 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.
Granprade Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Granprade are -
Buying journey improvements
– Granprade can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Casinos & Gaming 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
– Granprade has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Casinos & Gaming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Granprade to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Granprade to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Granprade 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Granprade 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. Granprade 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
– Granprade can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Casinos & Gaming 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Granprade in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Casinos & Gaming industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Granprade 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 Granprade to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Granprade to increase its market reach. Granprade 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Granprade in the Casinos & Gaming industry. Now Granprade can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Granprade can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Granprade has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Casinos & Gaming industry. This can help Granprade to build a more holistic ecosystem for Granprade products in the Casinos & Gaming industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Granprade External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Granprade are -
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. Granprade 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Granprade has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Casinos & Gaming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Granprade needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Granprade is facing in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Granprade 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Granprade 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. Granprade can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry.
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 Granprade.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Casinos & Gaming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Granprade 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. Granprade needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Casinos & Gaming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Granprade 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 Casinos & Gaming 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 Granprade business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Granprade Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Granprade 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 Granprade 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 Granprade 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 Granprade 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 Granprade needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.