General Cannabis (CANN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Rental & Leasing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for General Cannabis (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , General Cannabis 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, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that General Cannabis can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the General Cannabis, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of General Cannabis
2. Improving business portfolio management of General Cannabis
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Rental & Leasing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of General Cannabis
Strengths of General Cannabis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of General Cannabis are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of General Cannabis comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– General Cannabis is present in almost all the verticals within the Rental & Leasing industry. This has provided General Cannabis 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.
Organizational Resilience of General Cannabis
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing General Cannabis does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that General Cannabis 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the General Cannabis 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Rental & Leasing industry
– General Cannabis has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled General Cannabis to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Rental & Leasing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped General Cannabis to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– General Cannabis is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– General Cannabis has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – General Cannabis staying ahead in the Rental & Leasing 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 Rental & Leasing industry
– General Cannabis is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– General Cannabis has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Rental & Leasing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of General Cannabis have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of General Cannabis in Rental & Leasing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– General Cannabis 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.
Weaknesses of General Cannabis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Cannabis are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of General Cannabis, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Rental & Leasing 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
General Cannabis has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Rental & Leasing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Rental & Leasing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Rental & Leasing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at General Cannabis can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as General Cannabis is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Rental & Leasing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, General Cannabis 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
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 General Cannabis supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, General Cannabis is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left General Cannabis vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, General Cannabis has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry over the last five years. General Cannabis 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of General Cannabis products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, General Cannabis needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on General Cannabis ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of General Cannabis still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Rental & Leasing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though General Cannabis has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, General Cannabis has high operating costs in the Rental & Leasing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract General Cannabis lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at General Cannabis, in the dynamic environment of Rental & Leasing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. General Cannabis has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
General Cannabis Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of General Cannabis are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Rental & Leasing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. General Cannabis can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help General Cannabis to increase its market reach. General Cannabis 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
– General Cannabis can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– General Cannabis 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for General Cannabis in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Rental & Leasing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at General Cannabis 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– General Cannabis has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Rental & Leasing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled General Cannabis to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help General Cannabis to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, General Cannabis 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.
Manufacturing automation
– General Cannabis can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Rental & Leasing 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.
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 General Cannabis 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects General Cannabis can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. General Cannabis can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats General Cannabis External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of General Cannabis are -
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 General Cannabis business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on General Cannabis 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 Rental & Leasing 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.
Regulatory challenges
– General Cannabis 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 Rental & Leasing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for General Cannabis in Rental & Leasing industry. The Rental & Leasing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, General Cannabis may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Rental & Leasing sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– General Cannabis has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Rental & Leasing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, General Cannabis needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Rental & Leasing 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.
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 General Cannabis in the Rental & Leasing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 General Cannabis
– 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 General Cannabis.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that General Cannabis is facing in Rental & Leasing 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. General Cannabis needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Rental & Leasing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– General Cannabis 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of General Cannabis Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
