Cracker Barrel Old (CBRL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cracker Barrel Old (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cracker Barrel Old is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cracker Barrel Old

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cracker Barrel Old can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cracker Barrel Old, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cracker Barrel Old 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 Cracker Barrel Old can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cracker Barrel Old
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cracker Barrel Old
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cracker Barrel Old

---

Strengths of Cracker Barrel Old | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Cracker Barrel Old are -

Analytics focus

– Cracker Barrel Old 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 Restaurants 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.

Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Cracker Barrel Old has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cracker Barrel Old staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Learning organization

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

Organizational Resilience of Cracker Barrel Old

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cracker Barrel Old does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Cracker Barrel Old comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants 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 Cracker Barrel Old in Restaurants industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Diverse revenue streams

– Cracker Barrel Old is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

---

---

Weaknesses of Cracker Barrel Old | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Cracker Barrel Old are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Cracker Barrel Old 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cracker Barrel Old has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Restaurants industry over the last five years. Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Cracker Barrel Old needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High dependence on Cracker Barrel Old ‘s star products

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

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Cracker Barrel Old has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Lack of clear differentiation of Cracker Barrel Old products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cracker Barrel Old needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cracker Barrel Old, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cracker Barrel Old has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Cracker Barrel Old 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Cracker Barrel Old, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Cracker Barrel Old is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Restaurants industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of Cracker Barrel Old strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cracker Barrel Old 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.

---

Cracker Barrel Old Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Cracker Barrel Old are -

Increase in government spending

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cracker Barrel Old in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Restaurants industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Cracker Barrel Old has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cracker Barrel Old to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cracker Barrel Old 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, Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cracker Barrel Old is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cracker Barrel Old can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cracker Barrel Old to increase its market reach. Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Restaurants industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cracker Barrel Old 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. Cracker Barrel Old 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Cracker Barrel Old has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Cracker Barrel Old to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cracker Barrel Old products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Cracker Barrel Old can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

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 Cracker Barrel Old 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 Cracker Barrel Old External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Cracker Barrel Old are -

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. Cracker Barrel Old needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Restaurants industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Cracker Barrel Old 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 Restaurants industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Cracker Barrel Old is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Cracker Barrel Old 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 Restaurants industry and other sectors.

Easy access to finance

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

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cracker Barrel Old 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 Cracker Barrel Old prominent markets.

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 Cracker Barrel Old in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Environmental challenges

– Cracker Barrel Old needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Cracker Barrel Old can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants industry.

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 Cracker Barrel Old business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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 Cracker Barrel Old.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Restaurants industry are lowering. It can presents Cracker Barrel Old with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Restaurants sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Cracker Barrel Old 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 Restaurants industry regulations.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cracker Barrel Old Template, Example

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

--- ---