SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cimpress NV (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cimpress NV is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cimpress NV can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cimpress NV, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cimpress NV
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cimpress NV
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 Cimpress NV
Strengths of Cimpress NV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cimpress NV are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cimpress NV in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Cimpress NV has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cimpress NV to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cimpress NV 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.
Learning organization
- Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cimpress NV emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Cimpress NV 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cimpress NV has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cimpress NV 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.
Ability to lead change in Printing Services
– Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cimpress NV is one of the leading players in the Printing Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing Services industry
– Cimpress NV has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cimpress NV to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cimpress NV to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Cimpress NV
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cimpress NV does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cimpress NV 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cimpress NV has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cimpress NV 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cimpress NV is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing Services industry. This has provided Cimpress NV 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.
Weaknesses of Cimpress NV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cimpress NV are -
High dependence on Cimpress NV ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cimpress NV, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing Services 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 Cimpress NV is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing Services industry, but Cimpress NV needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cimpress NV to focus more on services in the Printing Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cimpress NV 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cimpress NV 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cimpress NV is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cimpress NV to provide better information regarding Printing Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cimpress NV 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. Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cimpress NV can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cimpress NV is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Cimpress NV needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Cimpress NV strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cimpress NV 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Printing Services industry, Cimpress NV 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.
Cimpress NV Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cimpress NV are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cimpress NV 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cimpress NV is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cimpress NV can utilize new technology in the field of Printing Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Cimpress NV 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Cimpress NV 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.
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 Cimpress NV 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cimpress NV 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. Cimpress NV 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. Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing Services industry. This can help Cimpress NV to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cimpress NV products in the Printing Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cimpress NV 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cimpress NV 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. Cimpress NV can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Cimpress NV External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cimpress NV are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cimpress NV 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cimpress NV is facing in Printing Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cimpress NV 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cimpress NV has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cimpress NV needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing Services 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cimpress NV 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing Services industry are lowering. It can presents Cimpress NV with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing Services sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cimpress NV 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cimpress NV 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 Printing Services industry and other sectors.
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. Cimpress NV 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.
Environmental challenges
– Cimpress NV 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. Cimpress NV can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cimpress NV Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV 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 Cimpress NV needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.