Rush A (RUSHA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rush A (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rush A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rush A

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rush A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rush A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rush A 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 Rush A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rush A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rush A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rush A

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Strengths of Rush A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Rush A are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Rush A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Learning organization

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

Organizational Resilience of Rush A

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Rush A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Rush A in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– Rush A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rush A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Rush A 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.

Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)

– Rush A is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Rush A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Rush A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rush A 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Rush A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Rush A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Digital Transformation in Retail (Specialty) industry

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

– Rush A is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Rush A 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.

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Weaknesses of Rush A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Rush A are -

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Rush A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Specialty) 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Rush A, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Specialty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rush A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Employees’ less understanding of Rush A strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rush A 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Rush A 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 dependence on Rush A ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Rush A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Rush A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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 Rush A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Rush A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Rush A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rush A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Rush A 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Rush A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Rush A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Rush A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Rush A is planning to shift buying processes online.

Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rush A 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Rush A is just above the Retail (Specialty) 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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Rush A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Rush A are -

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Rush A 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 Rush A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Rush A 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Rush A 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Rush A 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rush A 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 (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rush A 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Rush A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Rush A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rush A products in the Retail (Specialty) 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 Rush A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Buying journey improvements

– Rush A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rush A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rush A can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rush A 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.

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Threats Rush A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Rush A are -

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 Rush A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Rush A 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rush A 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 Rush A prominent markets.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rush A 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 (Specialty) sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Rush A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rush A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

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. Rush A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Rush A in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Rush A is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Rush A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Rush A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Rush A 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.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rush A Template, Example

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

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