Great Canadian Gaming (GC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Casinos & Gaming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great Canadian Gaming (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great Canadian Gaming is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
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, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great Canadian Gaming
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great Canadian Gaming can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great Canadian Gaming, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great Canadian Gaming
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great Canadian Gaming
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Casinos & Gaming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great Canadian Gaming
Strengths of Great Canadian Gaming | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great Canadian Gaming are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great Canadian Gaming comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Great Canadian Gaming is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Great Canadian Gaming has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Great Canadian Gaming to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Great Canadian Gaming has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Great Canadian Gaming staying ahead in the Casinos & Gaming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry. The technology infrastructure of Canada 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.
Digital Transformation in Casinos & Gaming industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Great Canadian Gaming digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Great Canadian Gaming has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Great Canadian Gaming has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Casinos & Gaming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Great Canadian Gaming have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Great Canadian Gaming has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Great Canadian Gaming to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Casinos & Gaming industry
– Great Canadian Gaming is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Weaknesses of Great Canadian Gaming | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great Canadian Gaming are -
High dependence on Great Canadian Gaming ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Great Canadian Gaming still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Casinos & Gaming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Great Canadian Gaming has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great Canadian Gaming is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Casinos & Gaming industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Great Canadian Gaming products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Great Canadian Gaming needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Great Canadian Gaming is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Great Canadian Gaming to provide better information regarding Casinos & Gaming products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Casinos & Gaming industry, Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Skills based hiring in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great Canadian Gaming 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Great Canadian Gaming has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Great Canadian Gaming strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Great Canadian Gaming don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Great Canadian Gaming is just above the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Great Canadian Gaming needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Casinos & Gaming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Great Canadian Gaming can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Great Canadian Gaming is planning to shift buying processes online.
Great Canadian Gaming Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great Canadian Gaming are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Casinos & Gaming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Great Canadian Gaming 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. Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Casinos & Gaming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Great Canadian Gaming can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Great Canadian Gaming can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Great Canadian Gaming can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Casinos & Gaming 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Great Canadian Gaming can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Casinos & Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Great Canadian Gaming in the Casinos & Gaming industry. Now Great Canadian Gaming can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Great Canadian Gaming can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Great Canadian Gaming operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Casinos & Gaming sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Great Canadian Gaming is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Great Canadian Gaming can utilize new technology in the field of Casinos & Gaming industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Threats Great Canadian Gaming External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great Canadian Gaming are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming prominent markets.
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. Great Canadian Gaming 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great Canadian Gaming is facing in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Casinos & Gaming industry are lowering. It can presents Great Canadian Gaming with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Casinos & Gaming sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Great Canadian Gaming in Casinos & Gaming industry. The Casinos & Gaming 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.
Environmental challenges
– Great Canadian Gaming 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. Great Canadian Gaming can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Great Canadian Gaming has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Casinos & Gaming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Great Canadian Gaming needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Great Canadian Gaming may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Casinos & Gaming sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming in the Casinos & Gaming sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.