Corby Spirit and Wine A (CSWa) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Beverages (Alcoholic)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Corby Spirit and Wine A (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Corby Spirit and Wine A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Corby Spirit and Wine A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Corby Spirit and Wine A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Corby Spirit and Wine A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Corby Spirit and Wine A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Corby Spirit and Wine A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Beverages (Alcoholic) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Corby Spirit and Wine A
Strengths of Corby Spirit and Wine A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Corby Spirit and Wine A are -
Ability to lead change in Beverages (Alcoholic)
– Corby Spirit and Wine A is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Corby Spirit and Wine A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Corby Spirit and Wine A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Corby Spirit and Wine A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Corby Spirit and Wine A is present in almost all the verticals within the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. This has provided Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Corby Spirit and Wine A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Corby Spirit and Wine A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Corby Spirit and Wine A in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Corby Spirit and Wine A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Corby Spirit and Wine A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
High brand equity
– Corby Spirit and Wine A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Corby Spirit and Wine A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Corby Spirit and Wine A is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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
– Corby Spirit and Wine A has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Learning organization
- Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Corby Spirit and Wine A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Corby Spirit and Wine A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Corby Spirit and Wine A are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Corby Spirit and Wine A has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Corby Spirit and Wine A has some of the most successful models in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Corby Spirit and Wine A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Corby Spirit and Wine A is just above the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Skills based hiring in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Corby Spirit and Wine A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Corby Spirit and Wine A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Corby Spirit and Wine A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Corby Spirit and Wine A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Corby Spirit and Wine A, in the dynamic environment of Beverages (Alcoholic) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Corby Spirit and Wine A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Corby Spirit and Wine A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Corby Spirit and Wine A are -
Loyalty marketing
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Corby Spirit and Wine A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. This can help Corby Spirit and Wine A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Corby Spirit and Wine A products in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Corby Spirit and Wine A 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. Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Corby Spirit and Wine A in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Now Corby Spirit and Wine A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Corby Spirit and Wine A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Corby Spirit and Wine A can utilize new technology in the field of Beverages (Alcoholic) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Corby Spirit and Wine A to increase its market reach. Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Corby Spirit and Wine A can develop new processes and procedures in Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Corby Spirit and Wine A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Corby Spirit and Wine A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Corby Spirit and Wine A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Corby Spirit and Wine A are -
Environmental challenges
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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. Corby Spirit and Wine A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Corby Spirit and Wine A is facing in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Corby Spirit and Wine A in the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A prominent markets.
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 Corby Spirit and Wine A.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Corby Spirit and Wine A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Corby Spirit and Wine A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Corby Spirit and Wine A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Beverages (Alcoholic) industry are lowering. It can presents Corby Spirit and Wine A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Corby Spirit and Wine A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Corby Spirit and Wine A in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. The Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Corby Spirit and Wine A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A 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 Corby Spirit and Wine A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.