BIG Blockchain (BBKCF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BIG Blockchain (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BIG Blockchain is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BIG Blockchain can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BIG Blockchain, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BIG Blockchain
2. Improving business portfolio management of BIG Blockchain
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of BIG Blockchain
Strengths of BIG Blockchain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BIG Blockchain are -
Analytics focus
– BIG Blockchain 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 United States 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
– BIG Blockchain has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BIG Blockchain to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BIG Blockchain digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BIG Blockchain 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– BIG Blockchain has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BIG Blockchain to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BIG Blockchain to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BIG Blockchain has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BIG Blockchain 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BIG Blockchain has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of BIG Blockchain have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BIG Blockchain 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
– BIG Blockchain is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled BIG Blockchain in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BIG Blockchain 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BIG Blockchain has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BIG Blockchain staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– BIG Blockchain is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided BIG Blockchain 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.
Training and development
– BIG Blockchain 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.
Weaknesses of BIG Blockchain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BIG Blockchain are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though BIG Blockchain 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. BIG Blockchain should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BIG Blockchain 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BIG Blockchain has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. BIG Blockchain 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, BIG Blockchain 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 industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BIG Blockchain is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on BIG Blockchain ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BIG Blockchain still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though BIG Blockchain has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
BIG Blockchain 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, BIG Blockchain 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BIG Blockchain, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BIG Blockchain 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 United States, BIG Blockchain needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
BIG Blockchain Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BIG Blockchain are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, BIG Blockchain 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
– BIG Blockchain 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– BIG Blockchain 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. BIG Blockchain can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for BIG Blockchain in the industry. Now BIG Blockchain can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. BIG Blockchain 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. BIG Blockchain 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.
Loyalty marketing
– BIG Blockchain 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BIG Blockchain to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– BIG Blockchain can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BIG Blockchain has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help BIG Blockchain to build a more holistic ecosystem for BIG Blockchain products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BIG Blockchain in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 BIG Blockchain 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.
Threats BIG Blockchain External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BIG Blockchain are -
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 BIG Blockchain in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 BIG Blockchain.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BIG Blockchain has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BIG Blockchain needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents BIG Blockchain with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. BIG Blockchain can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BIG Blockchain in industry. The 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of BIG Blockchain
– 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 BIG Blockchain.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BIG Blockchain is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. BIG Blockchain 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BIG Blockchain 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BIG Blockchain Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain 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 BIG Blockchain needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
