Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR (CBB_pb) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR
Strengths of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in the sector have low bargaining power. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
High brand equity
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Weaknesses of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR are -
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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 industry.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR are -
Buying journey improvements
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in the industry. Now Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 industry.
Threats Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in industry. The 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR 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 Cincinnati Bell Inc ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.