Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Muenchener Rueckver Ges is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Muenchener Rueckver Ges
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Muenchener Rueckver Ges can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Muenchener Rueckver Ges, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Muenchener Rueckver Ges
2. Improving business portfolio management of Muenchener Rueckver Ges
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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges
Strengths of Muenchener Rueckver Ges | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Muenchener Rueckver Ges are -
High brand equity
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Muenchener Rueckver Ges to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Organizational Resilience of Muenchener Rueckver Ges
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Muenchener Rueckver Ges does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Learning organization
- Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Muenchener Rueckver Ges emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Muenchener Rueckver Ges digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Muenchener Rueckver Ges has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Muenchener Rueckver Ges in the sector have low bargaining power. Muenchener Rueckver Ges has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Muenchener Rueckver Ges to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Muenchener Rueckver Ges in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Muenchener Rueckver Ges | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Muenchener Rueckver Ges are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Muenchener Rueckver Ges, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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, Muenchener Rueckver Ges is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Muenchener Rueckver Ges to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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. Muenchener Rueckver Ges should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Muenchener Rueckver Ges is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Muenchener Rueckver Ges needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Muenchener Rueckver Ges to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Muenchener Rueckver Ges is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Muenchener Rueckver Ges vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Muenchener Rueckver Ges is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Muenchener Rueckver Ges needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Muenchener Rueckver Ges can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Muenchener Rueckver Ges is planning to shift buying processes online.
Muenchener Rueckver Ges Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Muenchener Rueckver Ges are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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. Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Muenchener Rueckver Ges to increase its market reach. Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Muenchener Rueckver Ges to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Muenchener Rueckver Ges can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Muenchener Rueckver Ges operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges in the industry. Now Muenchener Rueckver Ges can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Muenchener Rueckver Ges can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Muenchener Rueckver Ges External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Muenchener Rueckver Ges are -
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. Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Muenchener Rueckver Ges
– 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges.
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. Muenchener Rueckver Ges needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges prominent markets.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 industry are lowering. It can presents Muenchener Rueckver Ges with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Muenchener Rueckver Ges Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges 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 Muenchener Rueckver Ges needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.