SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gibraltar Industries (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gibraltar Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gibraltar Industries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gibraltar Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gibraltar Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gibraltar Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gibraltar Industries
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gibraltar Industries
Strengths of Gibraltar Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gibraltar Industries are -
Analytics focus
– Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gibraltar Industries in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Gibraltar Industries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gibraltar Industries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gibraltar Industries in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gibraltar Industries 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gibraltar Industries has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gibraltar Industries staying ahead in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gibraltar Industries 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.
Learning organization
- Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gibraltar Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Gibraltar Industries 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 lead change in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– Gibraltar Industries is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Gibraltar Industries in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gibraltar Industries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gibraltar Industries 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
– Gibraltar Industries is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gibraltar Industries is present in almost all the verticals within the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This has provided Gibraltar Industries 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.
Weaknesses of Gibraltar Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gibraltar Industries are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gibraltar Industries is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gibraltar Industries, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gibraltar Industries is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but Gibraltar Industries needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gibraltar Industries to focus more on services in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gibraltar Industries has high operating costs in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Gibraltar Industries lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gibraltar Industries has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gibraltar Industries has some of the most successful models in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Gibraltar Industries should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Gibraltar Industries strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gibraltar Industries 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.
High dependence on Gibraltar Industries ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Gibraltar Industries still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Gibraltar Industries has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Gibraltar Industries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Gibraltar Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gibraltar Industries are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gibraltar Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gibraltar Industries to increase its market reach. Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries 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, Gibraltar Industries 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gibraltar Industries can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gibraltar Industries operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gibraltar Industries is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gibraltar Industries can utilize new technology in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gibraltar Industries has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can help Gibraltar Industries to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gibraltar Industries products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gibraltar Industries 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. Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Gibraltar Industries 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gibraltar Industries 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.
Threats Gibraltar Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gibraltar Industries are -
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 Gibraltar Industries in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Gibraltar Industries is facing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry and other sectors.
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 Gibraltar Industries.
Increasing wage structure of Gibraltar Industries
– 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 Gibraltar Industries.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gibraltar Industries in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gibraltar Industries may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gibraltar Industries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gibraltar Industries needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gibraltar Industries 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Gibraltar Industries 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. Gibraltar Industries can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Gibraltar Industries with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gibraltar Industries Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries 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 Gibraltar Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.