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 – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices,
wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, 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 -
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.
Organizational Resilience of Great Canadian Gaming
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Great Canadian Gaming does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
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.
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.
Learning organization
- Great Canadian Gaming 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 Great Canadian Gaming is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Great Canadian Gaming emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Great Canadian Gaming in Casinos & Gaming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Casinos & Gaming industry
– Great Canadian Gaming has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great Canadian Gaming to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great Canadian Gaming to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
Training and development
– Great Canadian Gaming has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
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 -
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.
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 Great Canadian Gaming supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Great Canadian Gaming is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Great Canadian Gaming vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Great Canadian Gaming has high operating costs in the Casinos & Gaming industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Great Canadian Gaming lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Great Canadian Gaming has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Casinos & Gaming industry over the last five years. Great Canadian Gaming 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.
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Great Canadian Gaming, in the dynamic environment of Casinos & Gaming industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Great Canadian Gaming has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Great Canadian Gaming 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 Casinos & Gaming industry using digital technology.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Great Canadian Gaming is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry, but Great Canadian Gaming needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Great Canadian Gaming to focus more on services in the Casinos & Gaming industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Great Canadian Gaming needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Great Canadian Gaming 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.
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.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great Canadian Gaming has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Casinos & Gaming industry. This can help Great Canadian Gaming to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great Canadian Gaming products in the Casinos & Gaming 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 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.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Great Canadian Gaming can develop new processes and procedures in Casinos & Gaming 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great Canadian Gaming in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Casinos & Gaming 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, 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Great Canadian Gaming 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.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Casinos & Gaming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great Canadian Gaming can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Great Canadian Gaming needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Casinos & Gaming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Great Canadian Gaming business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.