SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cambridge Bancorp (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cambridge Bancorp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cambridge Bancorp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cambridge Bancorp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cambridge Bancorp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cambridge Bancorp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cambridge Bancorp
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 Cambridge Bancorp
Strengths of Cambridge Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cambridge Bancorp are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Analytics focus
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cambridge Bancorp is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Cambridge Bancorp 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
– Cambridge Bancorp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cambridge Bancorp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Cambridge Bancorp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cambridge Bancorp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cambridge Bancorp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cambridge Bancorp in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Cambridge Bancorp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cambridge Bancorp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cambridge Bancorp in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Cambridge Bancorp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cambridge Bancorp are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cambridge Bancorp 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. Cambridge Bancorp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cambridge Bancorp has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Cambridge Bancorp is just above the Regional Banks 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.
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 Cambridge Bancorp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Cambridge Bancorp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cambridge Bancorp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cambridge Bancorp, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cambridge Bancorp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cambridge Bancorp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cambridge Bancorp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
Cambridge Bancorp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cambridge Bancorp are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cambridge Bancorp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cambridge Bancorp can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cambridge Bancorp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cambridge Bancorp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
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. Cambridge Bancorp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cambridge Bancorp to increase its market reach. Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cambridge Bancorp 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, Cambridge Bancorp 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.
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. Cambridge Bancorp 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
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cambridge Bancorp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Cambridge Bancorp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cambridge Bancorp products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Cambridge Bancorp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cambridge Bancorp are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cambridge Bancorp is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cambridge Bancorp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cambridge Bancorp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cambridge Bancorp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.
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
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Cambridge Bancorp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cambridge Bancorp in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cambridge Bancorp 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.
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. Cambridge Bancorp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Cambridge Bancorp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp prominent markets.
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 Cambridge Bancorp.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cambridge Bancorp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp 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 Cambridge Bancorp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.