SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Musee Grevin (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Musee Grevin is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Musee Grevin can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Musee Grevin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Musee Grevin
2. Improving business portfolio management of Musee Grevin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Musee Grevin
Strengths of Musee Grevin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Musee Grevin are -
Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Musee Grevin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Musee Grevin 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.
Learning organization
- Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Musee Grevin emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Musee Grevin has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Musee Grevin 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.
Training and development
– Musee Grevin 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Musee Grevin is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Musee Grevin is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.
Analytics focus
– Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities 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.
Ability to lead change in Recreational Activities
– Musee Grevin is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Activities industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Musee Grevin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Musee Grevin has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Musee Grevin staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Musee Grevin in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry
– Musee Grevin has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Musee Grevin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Activities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Musee Grevin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Musee Grevin in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Musee Grevin has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Musee Grevin to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Musee Grevin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Musee Grevin are -
Skills based hiring in Recreational Activities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Musee Grevin 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Musee Grevin is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Activities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities industry.
High dependence on Musee Grevin ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Musee Grevin still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Activities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Musee Grevin has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Musee Grevin needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Activities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Musee Grevin can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Musee Grevin is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Recreational Activities industry, Musee Grevin 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Musee Grevin strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Musee Grevin 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Musee Grevin has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Activities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Musee Grevin is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Musee Grevin to provide better information regarding Recreational Activities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Musee Grevin, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Activities 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.
Musee Grevin Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Musee Grevin are -
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 Musee Grevin 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Activities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Musee Grevin 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. Musee Grevin 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Musee Grevin 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Musee Grevin is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Musee Grevin can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities 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, Musee Grevin can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Musee Grevin operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Activities sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Musee Grevin 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.
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. Musee Grevin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Musee Grevin can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Activities 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Musee Grevin 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Musee Grevin has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Musee Grevin to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Musee Grevin to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Musee Grevin External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Musee Grevin are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Musee Grevin in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Musee Grevin 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. Musee Grevin can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities 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. Musee Grevin needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Activities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Musee Grevin 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 wage structure of Musee Grevin
– 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 Musee Grevin.
Regulatory challenges
– Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Musee Grevin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Musee Grevin in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Musee Grevin 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Musee Grevin Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin 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 Musee Grevin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
