Ucar (ALUCR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Rental & Leasing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ucar (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ucar is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ucar can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ucar, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ucar 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 Ucar can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ucar
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ucar
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Rental & Leasing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ucar
Strengths of Ucar | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ucar are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Ucar is present in almost all the verticals within the Rental & Leasing industry. This has provided Ucar 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ucar 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.
Analytics focus
– Ucar 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 Rental & Leasing 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Rental & Leasing industry
– Ucar is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Ucar 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ucar is one of the most innovative firm in Rental & Leasing sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Rental & Leasing industry
– Ucar has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ucar to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Rental & Leasing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ucar to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Ucar 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 Ucar is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ucar emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ucar is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ucar
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ucar does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Ucar has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ucar to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ucar comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Weaknesses of Ucar | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ucar are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Rental & Leasing industry, Ucar 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ucar 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 Rental & Leasing industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Ucar needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ucar is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry in last five years.
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 Ucar supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ucar is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ucar vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ucar has high operating costs in the Rental & Leasing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ucar lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ucar has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry over the last five years. Ucar 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ucar is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Rental & Leasing industry, but Ucar needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ucar to focus more on services in the Rental & Leasing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Rental & Leasing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ucar 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 Ucar is just above the Rental & Leasing 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ucar 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.
Ucar Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ucar are -
Manufacturing automation
– Ucar can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Rental & Leasing 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Rental & Leasing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ucar 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. Ucar 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ucar can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ucar has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Rental & Leasing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ucar to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ucar to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ucar can develop new processes and procedures in Rental & Leasing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ucar can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ucar operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Rental & Leasing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Ucar 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ucar in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Rental & Leasing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ucar to increase its market reach. Ucar 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.
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 Ucar 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ucar has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Rental & Leasing industry. This can help Ucar to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ucar products in the Rental & Leasing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Ucar can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Rental & Leasing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ucar in the Rental & Leasing industry. Now Ucar can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Ucar External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ucar are -
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 Ucar.
Increasing wage structure of Ucar
– 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 Ucar.
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. Ucar 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Rental & Leasing industry are lowering. It can presents Ucar with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Rental & Leasing 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.
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. Ucar needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Rental & Leasing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Rental & Leasing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ucar 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, Ucar may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Rental & Leasing sector.
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 Ucar in Rental & Leasing industry. The Rental & Leasing 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ucar 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.
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 Ucar business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ucar 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 Ucar prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ucar Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ucar 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 Ucar 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 Ucar 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 Ucar 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 Ucar needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
