Groupe Crit (CITT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Groupe Crit (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Groupe Crit is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Groupe Crit

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

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Strengths of Groupe Crit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Groupe Crit are -

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Groupe Crit is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Groupe Crit 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry

– Groupe Crit has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Groupe Crit to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Groupe Crit to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Groupe Crit in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Groupe Crit has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Groupe Crit to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

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

Organizational Resilience of Groupe Crit

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Groupe Crit 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.

High brand equity

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

Digital Transformation in Business Services industry

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Groupe Crit in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Training and development

– Groupe Crit 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.

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Weaknesses of Groupe Crit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Groupe Crit are -

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Groupe Crit, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Groupe Crit has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Groupe Crit 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Groupe Crit products

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

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Groupe Crit has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Need for greater diversity

– Groupe Crit 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 Business Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Groupe Crit 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Groupe Crit has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Groupe Crit lucrative customers.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Groupe Crit has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Groupe Crit has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Groupe Crit should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Groupe Crit, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Groupe Crit has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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Groupe Crit Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Groupe Crit are -

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Loyalty marketing

– Groupe Crit 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Groupe Crit 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. Groupe Crit 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Groupe Crit 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Groupe Crit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Groupe Crit to build a more holistic ecosystem for Groupe Crit products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Groupe Crit 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Groupe Crit in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Buying journey improvements

– Groupe Crit can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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 Groupe Crit can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Groupe Crit 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 Business Services industry.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Groupe Crit can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Groupe Crit operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.

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Threats Groupe Crit External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Groupe Crit are -

Environmental challenges

– Groupe Crit 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. Groupe Crit can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

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. Groupe Crit 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Groupe Crit 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 Business Services industry.

Easy access to finance

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

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Groupe Crit 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 Groupe Crit prominent markets.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Groupe Crit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.

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 Groupe Crit.

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.

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. Groupe Crit needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing wage structure of Groupe Crit

– 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 Groupe Crit.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Groupe Crit is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Groupe Crit may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Groupe Crit Template, Example

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

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