Community Trust (CTBI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Community Trust (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Community Trust is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Community Trust

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

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

The strengths of Community Trust are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Community Trust comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Community Trust in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

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

Training and development

– Community Trust 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.

Ability to lead change in Regional Banks

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

Learning organization

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Analytics focus

– Community Trust 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 Regional Banks 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Community Trust is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.

Organizational Resilience of Community Trust

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Community Trust 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.

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

The weaknesses of Community Trust are -

Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Community Trust 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 Community Trust supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Community Trust is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Community Trust vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Community Trust is just above the Regional Banks industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Community Trust 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 Regional Banks industry using digital technology.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Community Trust, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Community Trust has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

Lack of clear differentiation of Community Trust products

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

Slow decision making process

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Community Trust is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Community Trust has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Community Trust lucrative customers.

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

The opportunities of Community Trust are -

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Community Trust 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Community Trust can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Community Trust can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Community Trust 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.

Creating value in data economy

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Community Trust can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Community Trust can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Community Trust to increase its market reach. Community Trust 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Community Trust 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Community Trust can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Regional Banks industry.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

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

The threats of Community Trust are -

Easy access to finance

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

Regulatory challenges

– Community Trust 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.

Aging population

– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.

Environmental challenges

– Community Trust 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. Community Trust can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.

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.

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 Community Trust.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Community Trust in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Community Trust 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 Community Trust prominent markets.

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 Community Trust in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Community Trust 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 Regional Banks industry.

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. Community Trust needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Community Trust has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Community Trust needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Community Trust Template, Example

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

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