Rainbow Coral Co (RBCC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rainbow Coral Co (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rainbow Coral Co is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rainbow Coral Co

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rainbow Coral Co can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rainbow Coral Co, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rainbow Coral Co 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Rainbow Coral Co can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rainbow Coral Co
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rainbow Coral Co
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rainbow Coral Co

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Strengths of Rainbow Coral Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Rainbow Coral Co are -

Diverse revenue streams

– Rainbow Coral Co is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Rainbow Coral Co has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Rainbow Coral Co have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Analytics focus

– Rainbow Coral Co 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 Fish/Livestock 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.

Training and development

– Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Digital Transformation in Fish/Livestock industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Rainbow Coral Co digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Rainbow Coral Co is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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.

Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock

– Rainbow Coral Co is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Rainbow Coral Co in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Learning organization

- Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Rainbow Coral Co emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– Rainbow Coral Co is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.

Strong track record of project management in the Fish/Livestock industry

– Rainbow Coral Co is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Rainbow Coral Co comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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.

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Weaknesses of Rainbow Coral Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Rainbow Coral Co are -

Lack of clear differentiation of Rainbow Coral Co products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rainbow Coral Co needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Rainbow Coral Co is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Rainbow Coral Co is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Rainbow Coral Co needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Rainbow Coral Co to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Rainbow Coral Co has high operating costs in the Fish/Livestock industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Rainbow Coral Co lucrative customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rainbow Coral Co has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Rainbow Coral Co even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Rainbow Coral Co needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Skills based hiring in Fish/Livestock industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Rainbow Coral Co strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Rainbow Coral Co should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Rainbow Coral Co is just above the Fish/Livestock 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.

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Rainbow Coral Co Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Rainbow Coral Co are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Rainbow Coral Co has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fish/Livestock industry. This can help Rainbow Coral Co to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rainbow Coral Co products in the Fish/Livestock industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Rainbow Coral Co can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– Rainbow Coral Co 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

– Rainbow Coral Co has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Rainbow Coral Co to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rainbow Coral Co to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Rainbow Coral Co in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now Rainbow Coral Co can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Rainbow Coral Co can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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. Rainbow Coral Co can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rainbow Coral Co in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rainbow Coral Co can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rainbow Coral Co operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rainbow Coral Co to increase its market reach. Rainbow Coral Co 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rainbow Coral Co 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.

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Threats Rainbow Coral Co External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Rainbow Coral Co are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Rainbow Coral Co 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.

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 Rainbow Coral Co in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Rainbow Coral Co has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rainbow Coral Co needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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 Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Rainbow Coral Co with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.

Increasing wage structure of Rainbow Coral Co

– 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 Rainbow Coral Co.

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 Rainbow Coral Co.

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 Rainbow Coral Co business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Rainbow Coral Co 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Rainbow Coral Co is facing in Fish/Livestock sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Rainbow Coral Co 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co prominent markets.

Regulatory challenges

– Rainbow Coral Co 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rainbow Coral Co Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co 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 Rainbow Coral Co needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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