SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Marley Spoon (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Marley Spoon is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Marley Spoon can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Marley Spoon, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Marley Spoon
2. Improving business portfolio management of Marley Spoon
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Marley Spoon
Strengths of Marley Spoon | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Marley Spoon are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Marley Spoon has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Trucking industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Marley Spoon have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Marley Spoon 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 Trucking industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
High brand equity
– Marley Spoon has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Marley Spoon to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Marley Spoon 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Marley Spoon in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Marley Spoon has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Marley Spoon to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Marley Spoon emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Marley Spoon does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Marley Spoon has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Marley Spoon staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Trucking industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Marley Spoon digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Marley Spoon 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.
Ability to lead change in Trucking
– Marley Spoon is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Trucking industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Marley Spoon in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Marley Spoon is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Marley Spoon | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marley Spoon are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Marley Spoon, in the dynamic environment of Trucking industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Marley Spoon has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Marley Spoon 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Marley Spoon needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Marley Spoon can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Marley Spoon is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Marley Spoon has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Trucking industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Trucking industry, Marley Spoon 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Marley Spoon needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Marley Spoon supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Marley Spoon is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Marley Spoon vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Marley Spoon is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but Marley Spoon needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Marley Spoon to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Marley Spoon ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Marley Spoon still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Trucking industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Marley Spoon has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Marley Spoon products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Marley Spoon needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Marley Spoon has high operating costs in the Trucking industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Marley Spoon lucrative customers.
Marley Spoon Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Marley Spoon are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Marley Spoon 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. Marley Spoon 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Marley Spoon has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Trucking industry. This can help Marley Spoon to build a more holistic ecosystem for Marley Spoon products in the Trucking industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Marley Spoon 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
– Marley Spoon 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Marley Spoon in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Trucking industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Marley Spoon can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Marley Spoon 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 Trucking industry.
Manufacturing automation
– Marley Spoon can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Trucking 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Marley Spoon 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Marley Spoon can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Marley Spoon operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
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 Marley Spoon 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Marley Spoon can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Marley Spoon to increase its market reach. Marley Spoon 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.
Threats Marley Spoon External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Marley Spoon are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Marley Spoon
– 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 Marley Spoon.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Trucking industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Marley Spoon can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Marley Spoon 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 Trucking industry regulations.
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 Marley Spoon.
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 Marley Spoon in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Marley Spoon 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. Marley Spoon can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Trucking industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Marley Spoon 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Marley Spoon has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Marley Spoon needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Marley Spoon 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 Trucking industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Marley Spoon may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Trucking sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marley Spoon Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon 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 Marley Spoon needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.