Big Rock Partners (BRPA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Big Rock Partners (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Big Rock Partners is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Big Rock Partners
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Big Rock Partners can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Big Rock Partners, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Big Rock Partners
2. Improving business portfolio management of Big Rock Partners
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 Rock Partners
Strengths of Big Rock Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Big Rock Partners are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Big Rock Partners has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Big Rock Partners staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Big Rock Partners is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Big Rock Partners is one of the leading players in the 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Big Rock Partners is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Big Rock Partners 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.
Analytics focus
– Big Rock Partners 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Big Rock Partners is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Big Rock Partners 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Big Rock Partners digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Big Rock Partners 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Big Rock Partners in the sector have low bargaining power. Big Rock Partners has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Big Rock Partners to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Big Rock Partners 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
- Big Rock Partners 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 Big Rock Partners is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Big Rock Partners emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Big Rock Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Big Rock Partners are -
High dependence on Big Rock Partners ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Big Rock Partners needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Big Rock Partners products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Big Rock Partners needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Big Rock Partners, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Big Rock Partners has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Big Rock Partners 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Big Rock Partners is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Big Rock Partners is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Big Rock Partners to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Big Rock Partners 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.
Big Rock Partners Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Big Rock Partners are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Big Rock Partners 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Big Rock Partners 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 Big Rock Partners to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Big Rock Partners 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
– Big Rock Partners 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Big Rock Partners to increase its market reach. Big Rock Partners 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Big Rock Partners 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 industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Big Rock Partners to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Rock Partners in the industry. Now Big Rock Partners can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Big Rock Partners 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Big Rock Partners can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Big Rock Partners operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
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 Rock Partners can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Big Rock Partners 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.
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 Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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.
Threats Big Rock Partners External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Big Rock Partners are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Big Rock Partners 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.
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 Rock Partners 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Big Rock Partners may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Big Rock Partners is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Big Rock Partners
– 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 Rock Partners.
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. Big Rock Partners needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Big Rock Partners 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.
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 Rock Partners in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Big Rock Partners with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Big Rock Partners 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 industry regulations.
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 Big Rock Partners Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Big Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners 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 Rock Partners needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
