SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Salesforce.com DRC (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Salesforce.com DRC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Salesforce.com DRC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Salesforce.com DRC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Salesforce.com DRC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Salesforce.com DRC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Salesforce.com DRC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a NA sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Salesforce.com DRC
Strengths of Salesforce.com DRC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Salesforce.com DRC are -
Digital Transformation in NA industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Salesforce.com DRC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Salesforce.com DRC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the NA 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.
Strong track record of project management in the NA industry
– Salesforce.com DRC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Salesforce.com DRC is one of the most innovative firm in NA sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Salesforce.com DRC in the NA sector have low bargaining power. Salesforce.com DRC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Salesforce.com DRC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Salesforce.com DRC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Salesforce.com DRC staying ahead in the NA industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Salesforce.com DRC 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 NA industry. The technology infrastructure of Brazil 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 Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Learning organization
- Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Salesforce.com DRC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Salesforce.com DRC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Salesforce.com DRC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Salesforce.com DRC has one of the best training and development program in NA 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Salesforce.com DRC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Weaknesses of Salesforce.com DRC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Salesforce.com DRC are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Salesforce.com DRC has high operating costs in the NA industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Salesforce.com DRC lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the NA industry, Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Salesforce.com DRC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Salesforce.com DRC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Salesforce.com DRC is just above the NA 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Salesforce.com DRC has some of the most successful models in the NA industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Salesforce.com DRC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Salesforce.com DRC 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 NA industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Salesforce.com DRC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Salesforce.com DRC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in NA industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Salesforce.com DRC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Salesforce.com DRC has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the NA industry over the last five years. Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Salesforce.com DRC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the NA industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Salesforce.com DRC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Salesforce.com DRC is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Salesforce.com DRC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the NA industry, but Salesforce.com DRC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Salesforce.com DRC to focus more on services in the NA industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Salesforce.com DRC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Salesforce.com DRC are -
Manufacturing automation
– Salesforce.com DRC can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in NA 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Salesforce.com DRC 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 NA industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Salesforce.com DRC 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. Salesforce.com DRC 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, Salesforce.com DRC can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Salesforce.com DRC operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in NA sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Salesforce.com DRC can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Salesforce.com DRC to increase its market reach. Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Salesforce.com DRC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the NA 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.
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 Salesforce.com DRC 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in NA industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Salesforce.com DRC in the NA industry. Now Salesforce.com DRC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Salesforce.com DRC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in NA sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Salesforce.com DRC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Salesforce.com DRC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Salesforce.com DRC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the NA industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Salesforce.com DRC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Salesforce.com DRC are -
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. Salesforce.com DRC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the NA industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Salesforce.com DRC in the NA sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Salesforce.com DRC 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 NA industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Salesforce.com DRC 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 NA industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Salesforce.com DRC is facing in NA sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Salesforce.com DRC.
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
– Salesforce.com DRC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the NA industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Salesforce.com DRC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the NA 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in NA industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Salesforce.com DRC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to NA industry are lowering. It can presents Salesforce.com DRC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the NA sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Salesforce.com DRC in NA industry. The NA 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Salesforce.com DRC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC 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 Salesforce.com DRC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.