Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Creative Edge Nutrit is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Creative Edge Nutrit
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Creative Edge Nutrit can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Creative Edge Nutrit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Creative Edge Nutrit
2. Improving business portfolio management of Creative Edge Nutrit
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Retail (Grocery) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Creative Edge Nutrit
Strengths of Creative Edge Nutrit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Creative Edge Nutrit are -
Training and development
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Creative Edge Nutrit is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Grocery) sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Grocery) industry
– Creative Edge Nutrit is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Creative Edge Nutrit comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Grocery) 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 lead change in Retail (Grocery)
– Creative Edge Nutrit is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Grocery) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Creative Edge Nutrit in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Creative Edge Nutrit emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Creative Edge Nutrit is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Creative Edge Nutrit has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Creative Edge Nutrit staying ahead in the Retail (Grocery) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Creative Edge Nutrit in Retail (Grocery) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Creative Edge Nutrit in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Creative Edge Nutrit has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Creative Edge Nutrit to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Creative Edge Nutrit is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Grocery) industry. This has provided Creative Edge Nutrit a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses of Creative Edge Nutrit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Creative Edge Nutrit are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Grocery) industry, Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Creative Edge Nutrit strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Creative Edge Nutrit has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Grocery) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Creative Edge Nutrit should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Creative Edge Nutrit ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Creative Edge Nutrit still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Grocery) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Creative Edge Nutrit has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Grocery) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Creative Edge Nutrit needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Grocery) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Creative Edge Nutrit can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Creative Edge Nutrit is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Creative Edge Nutrit has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Grocery) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Creative Edge Nutrit is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Creative Edge Nutrit to provide better information regarding Retail (Grocery) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
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 Creative Edge Nutrit supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Creative Edge Nutrit is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Creative Edge Nutrit vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Creative Edge Nutrit is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry in last five years.
Creative Edge Nutrit Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Creative Edge Nutrit are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Creative Edge Nutrit to increase its market reach. Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Creative Edge Nutrit can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Creative Edge Nutrit in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Grocery) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Creative Edge Nutrit can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Grocery) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Creative Edge Nutrit has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Grocery) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Creative Edge Nutrit to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Creative Edge Nutrit to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Grocery) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Creative Edge Nutrit in the Retail (Grocery) industry. Now Creative Edge Nutrit can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Grocery) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Creative Edge Nutrit can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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
– Creative Edge Nutrit can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Grocery) 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Creative Edge Nutrit is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Creative Edge Nutrit can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Grocery) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Creative Edge Nutrit External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Creative Edge Nutrit are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Grocery) industry are lowering. It can presents Creative Edge Nutrit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Grocery) sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Grocery) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Creative Edge Nutrit can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Retail (Grocery) 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. Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Retail (Grocery) industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Retail (Grocery) industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Creative Edge Nutrit has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Grocery) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Creative Edge Nutrit needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Creative Edge Nutrit may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Grocery) sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Creative Edge Nutrit in Retail (Grocery) industry. The Retail (Grocery) 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.
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 Creative Edge Nutrit in the Retail (Grocery) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Creative Edge Nutrit Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit 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 Creative Edge Nutrit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.