Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cornerstone Strategic Return is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cornerstone Strategic Return
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cornerstone Strategic Return can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cornerstone Strategic Return, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cornerstone Strategic Return
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cornerstone Strategic Return
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cornerstone Strategic Return
Strengths of Cornerstone Strategic Return | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cornerstone Strategic Return are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cornerstone Strategic Return has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 recruit top talent
– Cornerstone Strategic Return is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial 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.
Training and development
– Cornerstone Strategic Return has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cornerstone Strategic Return
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cornerstone Strategic Return does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cornerstone Strategic Return has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cornerstone Strategic Return have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Cornerstone Strategic Return is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Cornerstone Strategic Return has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cornerstone Strategic Return to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cornerstone Strategic Return to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cornerstone Strategic Return in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Cornerstone Strategic Return has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cornerstone Strategic Return to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Cornerstone Strategic Return is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Cornerstone Strategic Return in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Cornerstone Strategic Return is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
Weaknesses of Cornerstone Strategic Return | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cornerstone Strategic Return are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cornerstone Strategic Return is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cornerstone Strategic Return is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cornerstone Strategic Return to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cornerstone Strategic Return has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on Cornerstone Strategic Return ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cornerstone Strategic Return still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cornerstone Strategic Return has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Cornerstone Strategic Return has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cornerstone Strategic Return lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cornerstone Strategic Return products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cornerstone Strategic Return needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cornerstone Strategic Return needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cornerstone Strategic Return can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cornerstone Strategic Return is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Cornerstone Strategic Return strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cornerstone Strategic Return, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
Cornerstone Strategic Return Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cornerstone Strategic Return are -
Manufacturing automation
– Cornerstone Strategic Return can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cornerstone Strategic Return to increase its market reach. Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cornerstone Strategic Return is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cornerstone Strategic Return can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
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 Cornerstone Strategic Return 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
– Cornerstone Strategic Return can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cornerstone Strategic Return has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Cornerstone Strategic Return to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cornerstone Strategic Return products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cornerstone Strategic Return has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cornerstone Strategic Return to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cornerstone Strategic Return to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cornerstone Strategic Return in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cornerstone Strategic Return can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cornerstone Strategic Return operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Threats Cornerstone Strategic Return External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cornerstone Strategic Return are -
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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. Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
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. Cornerstone Strategic Return needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cornerstone Strategic Return 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cornerstone Strategic Return in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
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 Cornerstone Strategic Return business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Cornerstone Strategic Return 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. Cornerstone Strategic Return can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cornerstone Strategic Return may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Cornerstone Strategic Return with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cornerstone Strategic Return can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cornerstone Strategic Return Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return 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 Cornerstone Strategic Return needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.