Brunswick (BC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brunswick (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brunswick is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brunswick

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brunswick can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brunswick, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brunswick 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Brunswick can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brunswick
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brunswick
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brunswick

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Strengths of Brunswick | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Brunswick are -

Diverse revenue streams

– Brunswick is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Products industry. This has provided Brunswick 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.

Learning organization

- Brunswick 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 Brunswick is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brunswick emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry

– Brunswick has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brunswick to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brunswick to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Training and development

– Brunswick has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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 Brunswick

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Brunswick does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Brunswick has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Brunswick have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

High brand equity

– Brunswick has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brunswick to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Brunswick has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Brunswick staying ahead in the Recreational Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Brunswick has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brunswick 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Brunswick in Recreational Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Brunswick 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Brunswick is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

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Weaknesses of Brunswick | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Brunswick are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Brunswick 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 Recreational Products industry using digital technology.

Need for greater diversity

– Brunswick 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Brunswick products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Brunswick needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Brunswick needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Brunswick, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Products 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Brunswick has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Brunswick should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Brunswick is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Products industry in last five years.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Brunswick 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Brunswick, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Brunswick has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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 Brunswick supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Brunswick is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brunswick vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Recreational Products industry, Brunswick 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.

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Brunswick Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Brunswick are -

Manufacturing automation

– Brunswick can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Products 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Brunswick 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 Recreational Products industry.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Brunswick has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Products industry. This can help Brunswick to build a more holistic ecosystem for Brunswick products in the Recreational Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brunswick 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Brunswick 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Products industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Brunswick in the Recreational Products industry. Now Brunswick can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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. Brunswick 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, Brunswick 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 Brunswick to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brunswick 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 Brunswick to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Brunswick 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.

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 Brunswick 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 Recreational Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Brunswick 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. Brunswick 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Brunswick can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brunswick operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Products sector.

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Threats Brunswick External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Brunswick are -

Consumer confidence and its impact on Brunswick 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 Recreational Products industry and other sectors.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brunswick in Recreational Products industry. The Recreational Products 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.

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 Brunswick in the Recreational Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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. Brunswick needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

– Brunswick 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. Brunswick can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Products 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brunswick 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 Brunswick prominent markets.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Brunswick 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 Recreational Products industry.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Products industry are lowering. It can presents Brunswick with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Products sector.

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 Brunswick.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Brunswick is facing in Recreational Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Recreational Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Brunswick can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brunswick Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brunswick 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 Brunswick 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 Brunswick 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 Brunswick 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 Brunswick needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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