Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Commerce Bancshares ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Commerce Bancshares ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Commerce Bancshares ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Commerce Bancshares ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Commerce Bancshares ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR
Strengths of Commerce Bancshares ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Commerce Bancshares ADR are -
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Commerce Bancshares ADR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Commerce Bancshares ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Commerce Bancshares ADR is one of the leading players in the 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Commerce Bancshares ADR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Commerce Bancshares ADR 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Commerce Bancshares ADR has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Commerce Bancshares ADR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Commerce Bancshares ADR in the sector have low bargaining power. Commerce Bancshares ADR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Commerce Bancshares ADR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Commerce Bancshares ADR has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Commerce Bancshares ADR to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Commerce Bancshares ADR to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Commerce Bancshares ADR in 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 Commerce Bancshares 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Commerce Bancshares 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.
Organizational Resilience of Commerce Bancshares ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Commerce Bancshares ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Commerce Bancshares ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Weaknesses of Commerce Bancshares ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Commerce Bancshares ADR are -
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Commerce Bancshares 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Commerce Bancshares ADR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Commerce Bancshares ADR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Commerce Bancshares ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Commerce Bancshares ADR to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Commerce Bancshares ADR has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Commerce Bancshares ADR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Commerce Bancshares ADR needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Commerce Bancshares ADR can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Commerce Bancshares ADR is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Commerce Bancshares ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Commerce Bancshares 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Commerce Bancshares ADR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Commerce Bancshares ADR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Commerce Bancshares ADR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Commerce Bancshares ADR 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Commerce Bancshares ADR is just above the 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.
Commerce Bancshares ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Commerce Bancshares ADR are -
Manufacturing automation
– Commerce Bancshares ADR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Commerce Bancshares 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Commerce Bancshares 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Commerce Bancshares ADR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Commerce Bancshares 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.
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. Commerce Bancshares ADR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Commerce Bancshares 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Commerce Bancshares ADR is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Commerce Bancshares 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Commerce Bancshares ADR to increase its market reach. Commerce Bancshares ADR 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Commerce Bancshares 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Commerce Bancshares ADR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Commerce Bancshares ADR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Commerce Bancshares ADR products in the 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 Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Commerce Bancshares ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Commerce Bancshares ADR are -
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 Commerce Bancshares ADR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Commerce Bancshares ADR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Commerce Bancshares ADR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Commerce Bancshares 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.
Increasing wage structure of Commerce Bancshares ADR
– 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Commerce Bancshares 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Commerce Bancshares ADR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Commerce Bancshares 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.
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
– Commerce Bancshares 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Commerce Bancshares 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Commerce Bancshares ADR may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Commerce Bancshares ADR 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 industry.
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. Commerce Bancshares 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Commerce Bancshares ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares 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 Commerce Bancshares ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
