Rosenbauer (RBAV) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Manufacturers
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rosenbauer (Germany)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rosenbauer is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rosenbauer can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rosenbauer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rosenbauer
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rosenbauer
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Germany
4. Making a Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rosenbauer
Strengths of Rosenbauer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rosenbauer are -
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Manufacturers
– Rosenbauer is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in Germany. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in Germany but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Rosenbauer in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Rosenbauer
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Rosenbauer does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Rosenbauer emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Rosenbauer 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The technology infrastructure of Germany 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rosenbauer is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This has provided Rosenbauer 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– Rosenbauer has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rosenbauer to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rosenbauer to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Rosenbauer has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rosenbauer to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Rosenbauer in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Rosenbauer 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rosenbauer 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rosenbauer has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rosenbauer 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Rosenbauer 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.
Weaknesses of Rosenbauer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rosenbauer are -
Employees’ less understanding of Rosenbauer strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rosenbauer 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Rosenbauer has some of the most successful models in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Rosenbauer should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rosenbauer 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Rosenbauer is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Rosenbauer to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Manufacturers products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Rosenbauer, in the dynamic environment of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rosenbauer has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Germany, Rosenbauer 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Rosenbauer needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Rosenbauer can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Rosenbauer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rosenbauer is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Rosenbauer 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Rosenbauer, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Germany, Rosenbauer needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Rosenbauer Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Rosenbauer are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rosenbauer 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
– Rosenbauer has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Rosenbauer to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rosenbauer to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Rosenbauer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Rosenbauer 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.
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. Rosenbauer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rosenbauer is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rosenbauer can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Rosenbauer 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Rosenbauer 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Rosenbauer can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rosenbauer 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Manufacturing automation
– Rosenbauer can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rosenbauer in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Rosenbauer External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Rosenbauer are -
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rosenbauer is facing in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Rosenbauer 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. Rosenbauer can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Rosenbauer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rosenbauer has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rosenbauer needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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. Rosenbauer needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Rosenbauer
– 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 Rosenbauer.
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 Rosenbauer.
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 Rosenbauer in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Rosenbauer 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry regulations.
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. Rosenbauer 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rosenbauer may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rosenbauer Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer 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 Rosenbauer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.