Marten Transport (MRTN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Trucking
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Marten Transport (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Marten Transport is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Marten Transport can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Marten Transport, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Marten Transport
2. Improving business portfolio management of Marten Transport
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Marten Transport
Strengths of Marten Transport | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Marten Transport are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Marten Transport is present in almost all the verticals within the Trucking industry. This has provided Marten Transport 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Marten Transport comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Trucking 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Marten Transport 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Trucking industry
– Marten Transport has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Marten Transport to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Trucking industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Marten Transport to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Marten Transport in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Trucking
– Marten Transport is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Trucking industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Marten Transport in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Marten Transport has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Marten Transport staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Marten Transport has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Marten Transport to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Marten Transport is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Marten Transport is one of the leading players in the Trucking 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
– Marten Transport has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Marten Transport 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Marten Transport in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Marten Transport has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Marten Transport to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Marten Transport | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marten Transport are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Marten Transport is just above the Trucking 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Marten Transport has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Marten Transport should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Marten Transport has high operating costs in the Trucking industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Marten Transport lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Marten Transport is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Marten Transport to provide better information regarding Trucking products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Marten Transport 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Marten Transport needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Marten Transport can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Marten Transport is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Trucking industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Marten Transport strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Marten Transport 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Marten Transport is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but Marten Transport needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Marten Transport to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Marten Transport is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Trucking industry in last five years.
Marten Transport Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Marten Transport are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Marten Transport 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Marten Transport in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Trucking industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Marten Transport 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. Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Marten Transport in the Trucking industry. Now Marten Transport can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Marten Transport can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Marten Transport 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.
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 Marten Transport 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Marten Transport can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Marten Transport 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
– Marten Transport 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Marten Transport has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Marten Transport to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Marten Transport to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Marten Transport External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Marten Transport are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Trucking industry are lowering. It can presents Marten Transport with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Trucking sector.
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. Marten Transport needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Marten Transport 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. Marten Transport can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Trucking industry.
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 Marten Transport.
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 Marten Transport in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline 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. Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Marten Transport in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.
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 Marten Transport business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Marten Transport 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 Trucking industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Marten Transport
– 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 Marten Transport.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marten Transport Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport 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 Marten Transport needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.