General Finance C Pref (GFNCP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Containers & Packaging
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for General Finance C Pref (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , General Finance C Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of General Finance C Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that General Finance C Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the General Finance C Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of General Finance C Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of General Finance C Pref
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of General Finance C Pref
Strengths of General Finance C Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of General Finance C Pref are -
Learning organization
- General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at General Finance C Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– General Finance C Pref is one of the most innovative firm in Containers & Packaging sector.
High brand equity
– General Finance C Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled General Finance C Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of General Finance C Pref in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of General Finance C Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing General Finance C Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– General Finance C Pref is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– General Finance C Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. General Finance C Pref 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– General Finance C Pref is present in almost all the verticals within the Containers & Packaging industry. This has provided General Finance C Pref 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.
Training and development
– General Finance C Pref has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of General Finance C Pref in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. General Finance C Pref has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps General Finance C Pref to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the General Finance C Pref 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– General Finance C Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – General Finance C Pref staying ahead in the Containers & Packaging industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of General Finance C Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of General Finance C Pref are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though General Finance C Pref has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. General Finance C Pref should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, General Finance C Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of General Finance C Pref products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, General Finance C Pref needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, General Finance C Pref has high operating costs in the Containers & Packaging industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract General Finance C Pref lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of General Finance C Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of General Finance C Pref 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that General Finance C Pref needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Containers & Packaging industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at General Finance C Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as General Finance C Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of General Finance C Pref is just above the Containers & Packaging 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Containers & Packaging industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, General Finance C Pref is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Containers & Packaging industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at General Finance C Pref, in the dynamic environment of Containers & Packaging industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. General Finance C Pref 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 Containers & Packaging industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at General Finance C Pref 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, General Finance C Pref is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help General Finance C Pref to provide better information regarding Containers & Packaging products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
General Finance C Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of General Finance C Pref are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. General Finance C Pref can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– General Finance C Pref 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, General Finance C Pref is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. General Finance C Pref can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of General Finance C Pref has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Containers & Packaging industry. This can help General Finance C Pref to build a more holistic ecosystem for General Finance C Pref products in the Containers & Packaging industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– General Finance C Pref has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Containers & Packaging sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled General Finance C Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help General Finance C Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for General Finance C Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– General Finance C Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
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 General Finance C Pref 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.
Loyalty marketing
– General Finance C Pref 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects General Finance C Pref can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Containers & Packaging industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. General Finance C Pref 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. General Finance C Pref 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Containers & Packaging industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for General Finance C Pref in the Containers & Packaging industry. Now General Finance C Pref can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of General Finance C Pref are -
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 General Finance C Pref business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that General Finance C Pref is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. General Finance C Pref can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. General Finance C Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Containers & Packaging industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– General Finance C Pref 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.
Increasing wage structure of General Finance C Pref
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of General Finance C Pref.
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.
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. General Finance C Pref 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, General Finance C Pref may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Containers & Packaging sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref prominent markets.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– General Finance C Pref 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 Containers & Packaging 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 General Finance C Pref in the Containers & Packaging sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of General Finance C Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref 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 General Finance C Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.