SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Carriage Services (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Carriage Services is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Carriage Services
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Carriage Services can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Carriage Services, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Carriage Services
2. Improving business portfolio management of Carriage Services
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Carriage Services
Strengths of Carriage Services | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Carriage Services are -
Innovation driven organization
– Carriage Services is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
Organizational Resilience of Carriage Services
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Carriage Services does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Carriage Services has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Carriage Services to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Carriage Services to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Carriage Services is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Carriage Services is one of the leading players in the Personal 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.
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Carriage Services digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Carriage Services 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
– Carriage Services is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Carriage Services 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Carriage Services has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Carriage Services 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.
Analytics focus
– Carriage Services 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 Personal Services 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Carriage Services has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Carriage Services have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Carriage Services in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Carriage Services emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Carriage Services | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Carriage Services are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Carriage Services, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Carriage Services products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Carriage Services needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Carriage Services is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Carriage Services has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Carriage Services should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Carriage Services needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Carriage Services ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Carriage Services still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Carriage Services has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Personal Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Carriage Services 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.
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 Carriage Services supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Carriage Services is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Carriage Services vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Carriage Services, in the dynamic environment of Personal Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Carriage Services has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Carriage Services 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 Personal Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Carriage Services is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Carriage Services needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Carriage Services to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Carriage Services Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Carriage Services are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Carriage Services 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, Carriage Services can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Carriage Services operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Carriage Services is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Carriage Services can utilize new technology in the field of Personal Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Carriage Services in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Carriage Services can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Carriage Services can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Carriage Services 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.
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. Carriage Services can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Carriage Services has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal Services industry. This can help Carriage Services to build a more holistic ecosystem for Carriage Services products in the Personal Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Carriage Services in the Personal Services industry. Now Carriage Services can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Carriage Services can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services 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.
Threats Carriage Services External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Carriage Services are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Carriage Services 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Carriage Services can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Carriage Services 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Carriage Services 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 Personal Services industry regulations.
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 Carriage Services in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Carriage Services with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
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 Carriage Services.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services prominent markets.
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. Carriage Services needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Carriage Services in Personal Services industry. The Personal 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Carriage Services may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Carriage Services 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 Personal Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Carriage Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Carriage Services Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services 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 Carriage Services needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.