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 – there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , 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 -
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.
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.
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.
Learning organization
- General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at General Cannabis emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– General Cannabis has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. General Cannabis 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.
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.
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.
Digital Transformation in Rental & Leasing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For General Cannabis digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. General Cannabis 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.
High brand equity
– General Cannabis has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled General Cannabis to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
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.
Weaknesses of General Cannabis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Cannabis are -
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As General Cannabis is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry in last five years.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– General Cannabis 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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, General Cannabis needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of General Cannabis strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of General Cannabis 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, General Cannabis 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 Rental & Leasing industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of General Cannabis is just above the Rental & Leasing 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.
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.
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.
General Cannabis Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of General Cannabis are -
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– General Cannabis 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for General Cannabis 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.
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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Rental & Leasing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for General Cannabis in the Rental & Leasing industry. Now General Cannabis can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of General Cannabis has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Rental & Leasing industry. This can help General Cannabis to build a more holistic ecosystem for General Cannabis products in the Rental & Leasing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– General Cannabis can develop new processes and procedures in Rental & Leasing 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.
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.
Threats General Cannabis External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of General Cannabis are -
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, General Cannabis 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 General Cannabis prominent markets.
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.
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.
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 General Cannabis.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. General Cannabis 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.
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.