SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Crown Castle (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Crown Castle is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Crown Castle can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crown Castle, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Crown Castle
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crown Castle
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Rental & Leasing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crown Castle
Strengths of Crown Castle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crown Castle are -
Learning organization
- Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Crown Castle emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Crown Castle is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Digital Transformation in Rental & Leasing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Crown Castle digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing
– Crown Castle is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Rental & Leasing industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Crown Castle in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Crown Castle in Rental & Leasing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Crown Castle comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Training and development
– Crown Castle has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Analytics focus
– Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Crown Castle 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Crown Castle in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Crown Castle has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Crown Castle to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Crown Castle is present in almost all the verticals within the Rental & Leasing industry. This has provided Crown Castle 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Crown Castle has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Crown Castle staying ahead in the Rental & Leasing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Crown Castle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Crown Castle is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crown Castle vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Crown Castle, in the dynamic environment of Rental & Leasing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Crown Castle has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Crown Castle 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Crown Castle products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Crown Castle needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crown Castle has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry over the last five years. Crown Castle 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.
Skills based hiring in Rental & Leasing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crown Castle 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Crown Castle has high operating costs in the Rental & Leasing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Crown Castle lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Crown Castle has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Rental & Leasing 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 Crown Castle strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Crown Castle 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Crown Castle has some of the most successful models in the Rental & Leasing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Crown Castle should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Crown Castle Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Crown Castle are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Crown Castle to increase its market reach. Crown Castle 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Crown Castle can develop new processes and procedures in Rental & Leasing 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 Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Rental & Leasing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Crown Castle in the Rental & Leasing industry. Now Crown Castle can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Crown Castle is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Crown Castle can utilize new technology in the field of Rental & Leasing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Rental & Leasing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Crown Castle can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Crown Castle 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Crown Castle has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Rental & Leasing industry. This can help Crown Castle to build a more holistic ecosystem for Crown Castle products in the Rental & Leasing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Crown Castle can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crown Castle in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Rental & Leasing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Crown Castle can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Rental & Leasing 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Crown Castle 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Crown Castle 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.
Threats Crown Castle External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Crown Castle are -
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 Crown Castle.
Environmental challenges
– Crown Castle 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. Crown Castle can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Rental & Leasing industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Crown Castle has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Rental & Leasing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Crown Castle needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Rental & Leasing 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.
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 Crown Castle in the Rental & Leasing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Crown Castle needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Rental & Leasing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle prominent markets.
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 Crown Castle business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Crown Castle
– 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 Crown Castle.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Crown Castle 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Rental & Leasing industry are lowering. It can presents Crown Castle with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Rental & Leasing sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Crown Castle 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 Rental & Leasing industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Crown Castle Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle 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 Crown Castle needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.