SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Netshoes CAYMAN (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Netshoes CAYMAN is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices,
geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Netshoes CAYMAN can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Netshoes CAYMAN, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Netshoes CAYMAN
2. Improving business portfolio management of Netshoes CAYMAN
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Netshoes CAYMAN
Strengths of Netshoes CAYMAN | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Netshoes CAYMAN are -
Innovation driven organization
– Netshoes CAYMAN is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Netshoes CAYMAN in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Netshoes CAYMAN has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Netshoes CAYMAN to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Netshoes CAYMAN to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Netshoes CAYMAN comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 (Catalog & Mail Order)
– Netshoes CAYMAN is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Netshoes CAYMAN in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Netshoes CAYMAN emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Netshoes CAYMAN has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Netshoes CAYMAN has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Netshoes CAYMAN to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Netshoes CAYMAN has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Netshoes CAYMAN staying ahead in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Netshoes CAYMAN has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Netshoes CAYMAN have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Netshoes CAYMAN is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Netshoes CAYMAN | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Netshoes CAYMAN are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Netshoes CAYMAN products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Netshoes CAYMAN needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Netshoes CAYMAN needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Netshoes CAYMAN can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Netshoes CAYMAN is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Netshoes CAYMAN has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on Netshoes CAYMAN ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Netshoes CAYMAN still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Netshoes CAYMAN has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Netshoes CAYMAN strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Netshoes CAYMAN should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Netshoes CAYMAN, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Netshoes CAYMAN Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Netshoes CAYMAN are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Netshoes CAYMAN in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Now Netshoes CAYMAN can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Netshoes CAYMAN can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Netshoes CAYMAN can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Netshoes CAYMAN can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Netshoes CAYMAN can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Netshoes CAYMAN operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Netshoes CAYMAN 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. Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Netshoes CAYMAN can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Netshoes CAYMAN 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 (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Netshoes CAYMAN External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Netshoes CAYMAN are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Netshoes CAYMAN in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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 (Catalog & Mail Order) industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Netshoes CAYMAN 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. Netshoes CAYMAN can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Netshoes CAYMAN can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Netshoes CAYMAN 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.
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. Netshoes CAYMAN needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Netshoes CAYMAN 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 (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 Netshoes CAYMAN in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Netshoes CAYMAN has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Netshoes CAYMAN needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry are lowering. It can presents Netshoes CAYMAN with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Netshoes CAYMAN Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN 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 Netshoes CAYMAN needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.