Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR
Strengths of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
High brand equity
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Organizational Resilience of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR in the sector have low bargaining power. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Innovation driven organization
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Learning organization
- CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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 industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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 industry.
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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to increase its market reach. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to build a more holistic ecosystem for CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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.
Buying journey improvements
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Threats CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Increasing wage structure of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Regulatory challenges
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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.
Environmental challenges
– CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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. CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust 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 CorEnergy Infrastructure Trust ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.