Carolina Trust Bank (CART) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Carolina Trust Bank (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Carolina Trust Bank is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Carolina Trust Bank
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Carolina Trust Bank can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Carolina Trust Bank, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Carolina Trust Bank
2. Improving business portfolio management of Carolina Trust Bank
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Carolina Trust Bank
Strengths of Carolina Trust Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Carolina Trust Bank are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Carolina Trust Bank is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Carolina Trust Bank in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Carolina Trust Bank has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Carolina Trust Bank to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Training and development
– Carolina Trust Bank has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Carolina Trust Bank is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Carolina Trust Bank comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.
Analytics focus
– Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks 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 Regional Banks industry
– Carolina Trust Bank has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Carolina Trust Bank to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Regional Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Carolina Trust Bank to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Carolina Trust Bank is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Learning organization
- Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Carolina Trust Bank emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Carolina Trust Bank 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.
High brand equity
– Carolina Trust Bank has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Carolina Trust Bank to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Carolina Trust Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Carolina Trust Bank are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Carolina Trust Bank needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Carolina Trust Bank is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Regional Banks industry, but Carolina Trust Bank needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Carolina Trust Bank to focus more on services in the Regional Banks industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Carolina Trust Bank needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Carolina Trust Bank can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Carolina Trust Bank is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Carolina Trust Bank has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Carolina Trust Bank should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Carolina Trust Bank has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Carolina Trust Bank lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
High dependence on Carolina Trust Bank ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Carolina Trust Bank still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Carolina Trust Bank has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Carolina Trust Bank products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Carolina Trust Bank needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Carolina Trust Bank 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Carolina Trust Bank has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Regional Banks industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Carolina Trust Bank is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Carolina Trust Bank to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Carolina Trust Bank Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Carolina Trust Bank are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Carolina Trust Bank 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. Carolina Trust Bank can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Carolina Trust Bank can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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
– Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
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 Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Carolina Trust Bank can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Carolina Trust Bank operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Carolina Trust Bank can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Carolina Trust Bank can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Carolina Trust Bank has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Carolina Trust Bank to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Carolina Trust Bank to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Carolina Trust Bank External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Carolina Trust Bank are -
Regulatory challenges
– Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Carolina Trust Bank 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 Regional Banks 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. Carolina Trust Bank 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Carolina Trust Bank with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
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 Carolina Trust Bank.
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 Carolina Trust Bank business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Carolina Trust Bank needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Carolina Trust Bank can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Carolina Trust Bank
– 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 Carolina Trust Bank.
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 Carolina Trust Bank in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank 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 Carolina Trust Bank needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.