Customers Bancorp Pref E (CUBI_pe) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Customers Bancorp Pref E (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Customers Bancorp Pref E is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption,
increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Customers Bancorp Pref E
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Customers Bancorp Pref E can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Customers Bancorp Pref E, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Customers Bancorp Pref E
2. Improving business portfolio management of Customers Bancorp Pref E
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Customers Bancorp Pref E
Strengths of Customers Bancorp Pref E | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Customers Bancorp Pref E are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Customers Bancorp Pref E have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Training and development
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Customers Bancorp Pref E comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Organizational Resilience of Customers Bancorp Pref E
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Customers Bancorp Pref E does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Customers Bancorp Pref E to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Customers Bancorp Pref E is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Customers Bancorp Pref E to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Customers Bancorp Pref E to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Customers Bancorp Pref E is one of the leading players in the 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Customers Bancorp Pref E is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Customers Bancorp Pref E in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Customers Bancorp Pref E in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Weaknesses of Customers Bancorp Pref E | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Customers Bancorp Pref E are -
High dependence on Customers Bancorp Pref E ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Customers Bancorp Pref E still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Customers Bancorp Pref E has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Customers Bancorp Pref E has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Customers Bancorp Pref E should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Customers Bancorp Pref E is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Customers Bancorp Pref E to provide better information regarding 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 industry, Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Customers Bancorp Pref E, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Customers Bancorp Pref E has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Customers Bancorp Pref E needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Customers Bancorp Pref E has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Customers Bancorp Pref E products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Customers Bancorp Pref E needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Customers Bancorp Pref E Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Customers Bancorp Pref E are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Customers Bancorp Pref E can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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, Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Customers Bancorp Pref E has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Customers Bancorp Pref E to build a more holistic ecosystem for Customers Bancorp Pref E products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Customers Bancorp Pref E to increase its market reach. Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
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 Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Customers Bancorp Pref E in the industry. Now Customers Bancorp Pref E 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, Customers Bancorp Pref E can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Customers Bancorp Pref E operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Customers Bancorp Pref E to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Customers Bancorp Pref E to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Customers Bancorp Pref E External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Customers Bancorp Pref E are -
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.
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.
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. Customers Bancorp Pref E needs to understand the core reasons impacting the 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E in industry. The 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
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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. Customers Bancorp Pref E can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 industry.
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. Customers Bancorp Pref E 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Customers Bancorp Pref E is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Customers Bancorp Pref E.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Customers Bancorp Pref E has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Customers Bancorp Pref E needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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, Customers Bancorp Pref E may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Customers Bancorp Pref E Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E 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 Customers Bancorp Pref E needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.