Champion Ind (CHMP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Printing Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Champion Ind (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Champion Ind is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Champion Ind can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Champion Ind, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Champion Ind
2. Improving business portfolio management of Champion Ind
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Printing Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Champion Ind
Strengths of Champion Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Champion Ind are -
Ability to lead change in Printing Services
– Champion Ind is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Champion Ind in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing Services industry
– Champion Ind has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Champion Ind to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Champion Ind to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Champion Ind has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Champion Ind to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Champion Ind 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
– Champion Ind has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Champion Ind have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Champion Ind comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Printing Services 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.
Analytics focus
– Champion Ind 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 Printing Services 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Champion Ind has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Champion Ind staying ahead in the Printing Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Champion Ind has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Champion Ind has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Diverse revenue streams
– Champion Ind is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing Services industry. This has provided Champion Ind 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Champion Ind in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Champion Ind has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Champion Ind to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Champion Ind 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.
Weaknesses of Champion Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Champion Ind are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Champion Ind needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Champion Ind strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Champion Ind 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Champion Ind products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Champion Ind needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Printing Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Champion Ind 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 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 Champion Ind supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Champion Ind is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Champion Ind vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Champion Ind is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Champion Ind has some of the most successful models in the Printing Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Champion Ind should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Champion Ind ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Champion Ind still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Printing Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Champion Ind has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Champion Ind has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Printing Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Champion Ind has high operating costs in the Printing Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Champion Ind lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Champion Ind 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 Printing Services industry using digital technology.
Champion Ind Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Champion Ind are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Champion Ind has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing Services industry. This can help Champion Ind to build a more holistic ecosystem for Champion Ind products in the Printing Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Champion Ind can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Champion Ind has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Champion Ind to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Champion Ind to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Champion Ind 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. Champion Ind 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Champion Ind can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Printing Services 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 Champion Ind in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Champion Ind 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Champion Ind to increase its market reach. Champion Ind 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Champion Ind can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Champion Ind operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing Services sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Champion Ind 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Champion Ind in the Printing Services industry. Now Champion Ind can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Champion Ind 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Champion Ind 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 Printing Services industry.
Threats Champion Ind External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Champion Ind are -
Regulatory challenges
– Champion Ind 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 Printing Services industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Champion Ind 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 Printing Services 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. Champion Ind needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing Services 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 Champion Ind business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Champion Ind 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.
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. Champion Ind 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Champion Ind in Printing Services industry. The Printing Services 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Printing Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Champion Ind can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Champion Ind is facing in Printing Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Champion Ind may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind in the Printing Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Champion Ind Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind 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 Champion Ind needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.