Bowl America Inc (BWLa) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Recreational Activities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bowl America Inc (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bowl America Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bowl America Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bowl America Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bowl America Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bowl America Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bowl America Inc
Strengths of Bowl America Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bowl America Inc are -
Training and development
– Bowl America Inc 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.
Analytics focus
– Bowl America Inc 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 Recreational Activities 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry
– Bowl America Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bowl America Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Activities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bowl America Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bowl America Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bowl America Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Activities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bowl America Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bowl America Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Activities industry. This has provided Bowl America Inc 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.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bowl America Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Bowl America Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bowl America Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bowl America Inc in Recreational Activities 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 Recreational Activities industry
– Bowl America Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bowl America Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bowl America Inc staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Bowl America Inc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bowl America Inc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Bowl America Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bowl America Inc are -
Employees’ less understanding of Bowl America Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bowl America Inc don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bowl America Inc is just above the Recreational Activities 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bowl America Inc is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Recreational Activities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bowl America Inc 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bowl America Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Activities industry, but Bowl America Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bowl America Inc to focus more on services in the Recreational Activities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bowl America Inc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bowl America Inc has high operating costs in the Recreational Activities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bowl America Inc lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bowl America Inc 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 Activities industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Activities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Bowl America Inc 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bowl America Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry over the last five years. Bowl America Inc 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.
Bowl America Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bowl America Inc are -
Loyalty marketing
– Bowl America Inc 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
– Bowl America Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bowl America Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bowl America Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bowl America Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bowl America Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bowl America Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Bowl America Inc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bowl America Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Activities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Bowl America Inc can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Activities 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bowl America Inc can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Activities 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bowl America Inc 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bowl America Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bowl America Inc 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, Bowl America Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bowl America Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Activities sector.
Threats Bowl America Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Bowl America Inc
– 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 Bowl America Inc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bowl America Inc is facing in Recreational Activities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Bowl America Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Activities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Bowl America Inc 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bowl America Inc 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 Activities industry and other sectors.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bowl America Inc in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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.
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 Bowl America Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Bowl America Inc 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. Bowl America Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bowl America Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Activities sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc prominent markets.
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 Bowl America Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc 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 Bowl America Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.