SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Roche Bobois (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Roche Bobois is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Roche Bobois can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Roche Bobois, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Roche Bobois
2. Improving business portfolio management of Roche Bobois
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Furniture & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Roche Bobois
Strengths of Roche Bobois | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Roche Bobois are -
Learning organization
- Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Roche Bobois emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Roche Bobois is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Analytics focus
– Roche Bobois 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry. The technology infrastructure of France 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Roche Bobois has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Roche Bobois staying ahead in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Furniture & Fixtures industry
– Roche Bobois has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Roche Bobois to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Roche Bobois to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Roche Bobois in Furniture & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Roche Bobois 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.
Training and development
– Roche Bobois has one of the best training and development program in Consumer 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Roche Bobois has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Furniture & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Roche Bobois have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Roche Bobois is present in almost all the verticals within the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This has provided Roche Bobois 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.
Ability to lead change in Furniture & Fixtures
– Roche Bobois is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Roche Bobois in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Furniture & Fixtures industry
– Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Roche Bobois are -
High dependence on Roche Bobois ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Roche Bobois still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Furniture & Fixtures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Roche Bobois has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Roche Bobois strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Roche Bobois 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry, Roche Bobois 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Roche Bobois, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Furniture & 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.
Skills based hiring in Furniture & Fixtures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Roche Bobois 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 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 Roche Bobois supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Roche Bobois is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Roche Bobois vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Roche Bobois needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Furniture & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Roche Bobois can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Roche Bobois is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Roche Bobois 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Roche Bobois is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, but Roche Bobois needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Roche Bobois to focus more on services in the Furniture & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Roche Bobois has high operating costs in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Roche Bobois lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Roche Bobois is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in last five years.
Roche Bobois Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Roche Bobois are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Roche Bobois 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Roche Bobois 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Roche Bobois is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Roche Bobois can utilize new technology in the field of Furniture & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Furniture & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Roche Bobois can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Roche Bobois in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Roche Bobois has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can help Roche Bobois to build a more holistic ecosystem for Roche Bobois products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Roche Bobois 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Roche Bobois has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Furniture & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Roche Bobois to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Roche Bobois to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Roche Bobois can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Roche Bobois 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Roche Bobois can develop new processes and procedures in Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Roche Bobois 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.
Threats Roche Bobois External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois 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. Roche Bobois 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
– Roche Bobois 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois prominent markets.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Roche Bobois in Furniture & Fixtures industry. The Furniture & 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Roche Bobois has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Roche Bobois needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Furniture & 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Roche Bobois 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Roche Bobois 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.
Environmental challenges
– Roche Bobois 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. Roche Bobois can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry.
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. Roche Bobois needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Furniture & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Roche Bobois can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Roche Bobois may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Furniture & Fixtures sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Roche Bobois Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois 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 Roche Bobois needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.