Caseys (CASY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Caseys (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Caseys is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Caseys

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Caseys can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Caseys, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Caseys 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Caseys can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Caseys
2. Improving business portfolio management of Caseys
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Retail (Grocery) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Caseys

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Strengths of Caseys | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Caseys are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Caseys comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Grocery) 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Caseys in Retail (Grocery) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Caseys digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Caseys 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.

Ability to lead change in Retail (Grocery)

– Caseys is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Grocery) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Caseys in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Grocery) industry

– Caseys has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Caseys to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Grocery) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Caseys to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High brand equity

– Caseys has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Caseys to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Diverse revenue streams

– Caseys is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Grocery) industry. This has provided Caseys 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

– Caseys is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) 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.

Learning organization

- Caseys 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 Caseys is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Caseys emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Caseys has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Grocery) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Caseys have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Caseys in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Caseys has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Caseys to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

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Weaknesses of Caseys | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Caseys are -

Skills based hiring in Retail (Grocery) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Caseys 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.

High dependence on Caseys ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Caseys still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Grocery) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Caseys has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Caseys is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry in last five years.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Grocery) industry, Caseys needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Caseys has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Grocery) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry using digital technology.

Need for greater diversity

– Caseys 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Grocery) industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Caseys has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry over the last five years. Caseys 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Caseys is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Caseys to provide better information regarding Retail (Grocery) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Caseys has high operating costs in the Retail (Grocery) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Caseys lucrative customers.

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Caseys Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Caseys are -

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Grocery) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Caseys can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Caseys 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Caseys can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Grocery) 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Caseys 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 Caseys to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Grocery) industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Caseys in the Retail (Grocery) industry. Now Caseys can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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. Caseys can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Caseys 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 Caseys to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Caseys can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Caseys operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Grocery) sector.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Caseys in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Grocery) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Caseys can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Caseys has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Grocery) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Caseys to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Caseys to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Caseys 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.

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Threats Caseys External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Caseys are -

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Grocery) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Caseys can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Caseys 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Caseys has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Grocery) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Caseys needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Grocery) 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry regulations.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Caseys in Retail (Grocery) industry. The Retail (Grocery) 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, Caseys may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Grocery) sector.

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. Caseys needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Grocery) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

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 Caseys in the Retail (Grocery) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Caseys 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Caseys 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 Retail (Grocery) industry and other sectors.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Caseys is facing in Retail (Grocery) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 Caseys business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Caseys Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Caseys 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 Caseys 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 Caseys 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 Caseys 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 Caseys needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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