Coretec (CRTG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Coretec (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Coretec is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Coretec

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Coretec can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coretec, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Coretec 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Coretec can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Coretec
2. Improving business portfolio management of Coretec
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Coretec

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Strengths of Coretec | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Coretec are -

Training and development

– Coretec has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.

Digital Transformation in Communications Equipment industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Coretec digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Coretec 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.

Learning organization

- Coretec 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 Coretec is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Coretec emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Coretec is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Coretec 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.

High brand equity

– Coretec has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Coretec to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Coretec 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.

Analytics focus

– Coretec is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

Ability to lead change in Communications Equipment

– Coretec is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Equipment industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Coretec in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Coretec 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Coretec in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Coretec has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Coretec to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Coretec comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Coretec has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Coretec staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Coretec | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Coretec are -

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Coretec needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Coretec is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Coretec to provide better information regarding Communications Equipment products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Coretec has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. Coretec 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Coretec 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Coretec has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment 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 Coretec ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Coretec still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Coretec has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Lack of clear differentiation of Coretec products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Coretec needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Coretec, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Coretec has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Coretec should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Coretec 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 Communications Equipment industry using digital technology.

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 Coretec supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Coretec is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Coretec vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

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Coretec Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Coretec are -

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Coretec can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Buying journey improvements

– Coretec can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Coretec in the Communications Equipment industry. Now Coretec can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Coretec has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Coretec to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Coretec to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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. Coretec can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Coretec 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 Coretec to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Coretec 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Coretec can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Coretec operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.

Loyalty marketing

– Coretec 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Coretec in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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 Coretec 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Coretec can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Coretec is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Coretec can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

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Threats Coretec External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Coretec are -

Increasing wage structure of Coretec

– 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 Coretec.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Coretec 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 Communications Equipment industry and other sectors.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Coretec has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Coretec needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Coretec 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.

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 Coretec.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Coretec 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 Communications Equipment 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 Coretec in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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. Coretec needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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. Coretec 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 dependence on third party suppliers

– Coretec 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Coretec may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.

Environmental challenges

– Coretec 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. Coretec can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Coretec is facing in Communications Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Coretec Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Coretec 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 Coretec 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 Coretec 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 Coretec 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 Coretec needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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