Capital Product Partners (CPLP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Capital Product Partners (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Capital Product Partners is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Capital Product Partners
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Capital Product Partners can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Capital Product Partners, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Capital Product Partners
2. Improving business portfolio management of Capital Product Partners
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Capital Product Partners
Strengths of Capital Product Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Capital Product Partners are -
Learning organization
- Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Capital Product Partners emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Capital Product Partners digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Capital Product Partners 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Capital Product Partners is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Capital Product Partners 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Capital Product Partners is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Capital Product Partners is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Capital Product Partners in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Capital Product Partners
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Capital Product Partners does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Capital Product Partners comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Capital Product Partners 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Capital Product Partners has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Capital Product Partners 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)
– Capital Product Partners has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Capital Product Partners staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Capital Product Partners is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Capital Product Partners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Capital Product Partners are -
High dependence on Capital Product Partners ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Capital Product Partners still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Capital Product Partners has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, Capital Product Partners 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Capital Product Partners has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Capital Product Partners should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Capital Product Partners is just above the Water Transportation 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Capital Product Partners is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Capital Product Partners to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Capital Product Partners, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Capital Product Partners has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Capital Product Partners needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Capital Product Partners 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Capital Product Partners has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Lack of clear differentiation of Capital Product Partners products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Capital Product Partners needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Capital Product Partners 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Capital Product Partners Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Capital Product Partners are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Capital Product Partners is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Capital Product Partners can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Capital Product Partners 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Capital Product Partners to increase its market reach. Capital Product Partners 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Capital Product Partners 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Capital Product Partners in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Capital Product Partners can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Capital Product Partners can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Capital Product Partners 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Capital Product Partners can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Capital Product Partners operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Capital Product Partners in the Water Transportation industry. Now Capital Product Partners can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Capital Product Partners can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Capital Product Partners 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Capital Product Partners can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Capital Product Partners External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Capital Product Partners are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Capital Product Partners 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Capital Product Partners
– 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 Capital Product Partners.
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 Capital Product Partners business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Capital Product Partners is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Capital Product Partners needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Capital Product Partners has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Capital Product Partners needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Environmental challenges
– Capital Product Partners 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. Capital Product Partners can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
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 Capital Product Partners in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Capital Product Partners.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Capital Product Partners 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Capital Product Partners with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Capital Product Partners Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners 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 Capital Product Partners needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.