Costamare Inc Pc Pref (CMRE_pc) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Costamare Inc Pc Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Costamare Inc Pc Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Costamare Inc Pc Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Costamare Inc Pc Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Costamare Inc Pc Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Costamare Inc Pc Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Costamare Inc Pc Pref
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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref
Strengths of Costamare Inc Pc Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Costamare Inc Pc Pref are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Costamare Inc Pc Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Costamare Inc Pc Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Costamare Inc Pc Pref in the sector have low bargaining power. Costamare Inc Pc Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Costamare Inc Pc Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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)
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Costamare Inc Pc Pref staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Learning organization
- Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Costamare Inc Pc Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Costamare Inc Pc Pref digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 recruit top talent
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Weaknesses of Costamare Inc Pc Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Costamare Inc Pc Pref are -
Employees’ less understanding of Costamare Inc Pc Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
High dependence on Costamare Inc Pc Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Costamare Inc Pc Pref still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Costamare Inc Pc Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Costamare Inc Pc Pref is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Costamare Inc Pc Pref vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Costamare Inc Pc Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Costamare Inc Pc Pref products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Costamare Inc Pc Pref needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Costamare Inc Pc Pref has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Costamare Inc Pc Pref is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Costamare Inc Pc Pref needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Costamare Inc Pc Pref to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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. Costamare Inc Pc Pref should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Costamare Inc Pc Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Costamare Inc Pc Pref are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Costamare Inc Pc Pref to increase its market reach. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Costamare Inc Pc Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Costamare Inc Pc Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Costamare Inc Pc Pref can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Costamare Inc Pc Pref has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Costamare Inc Pc Pref to build a more holistic ecosystem for Costamare Inc Pc Pref products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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. Costamare Inc Pc Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Threats Costamare Inc Pc Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Costamare Inc Pc Pref are -
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. Costamare Inc Pc Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Costamare Inc Pc Pref is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Costamare Inc Pc Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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. Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Costamare Inc Pc Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref 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 Costamare Inc Pc Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.