Crown Crafts (CRWS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Crown Crafts (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Crown Crafts is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Crown Crafts

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Crown Crafts can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crown Crafts, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crown Crafts 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 Crown Crafts can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Crown Crafts
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crown Crafts
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Furniture & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crown Crafts

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

The strengths of Crown Crafts are -

Innovation driven organization

– Crown Crafts is one of the most innovative firm in Furniture & Fixtures sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Crown Crafts has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Furniture & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Crown Crafts have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Furniture & Fixtures industry

– Crown Crafts has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Crown Crafts to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Crown Crafts to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Crown Crafts is present in almost all the verticals within the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This has provided Crown Crafts 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Crown Crafts is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Crown Crafts 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 lead change in Furniture & Fixtures

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

Organizational Resilience of Crown Crafts

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Crown Crafts does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Analytics focus

– Crown Crafts 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 Furniture & Fixtures 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Crown Crafts in Furniture & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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

The weaknesses of Crown Crafts are -

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, Crown Crafts 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

High dependence on Crown Crafts ‘s star products

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

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Crown Crafts needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Furniture & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Crown Crafts can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Crown Crafts is planning to shift buying processes online.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Crown Crafts 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry using digital technology.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Crown Crafts has high operating costs in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Crown Crafts lucrative customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crown Crafts has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Furniture & Fixtures industry over the last five years. Crown Crafts 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

– Crown Crafts 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Crown Crafts is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, but Crown Crafts needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Crown Crafts to focus more on services in the Furniture & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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

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

The opportunities of Crown Crafts are -

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 Crown Crafts 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Crown Crafts 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Crown Crafts can develop new processes and procedures in Furniture & Fixtures industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.

Increase in government spending

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

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Crown Crafts has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can help Crown Crafts to build a more holistic ecosystem for Crown Crafts products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Crown Crafts 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Buying journey improvements

– Crown Crafts can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Crown Crafts 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 Crown Crafts to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

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

The threats of Crown Crafts are -

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Furniture & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Crown Crafts with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Furniture & Fixtures sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Crown Crafts 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry and other sectors.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Crown Crafts in Furniture & Fixtures industry. The Furniture & Fixtures 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.

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 Crown Crafts business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Crown Crafts high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Crown Crafts has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Crown Crafts needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Furniture & Fixtures sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Crown Crafts 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.

Environmental challenges

– Crown Crafts 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. Crown Crafts can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry.

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 Crown Crafts.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Furniture & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Crown Crafts can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

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 Crown Crafts in the Furniture & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Crown Crafts 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 Crown Crafts prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Crown Crafts Template, Example

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

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