Carrianna (126) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Restaurants
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Carrianna (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Carrianna is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Carrianna can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Carrianna, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Carrianna 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 Carrianna can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Carrianna
2. Improving business portfolio management of Carrianna
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Carrianna
Strengths of Carrianna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Carrianna are -
Learning organization
- Carrianna 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 Carrianna is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Carrianna emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry
– Carrianna has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Carrianna to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Carrianna to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Carrianna digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Carrianna 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Carrianna 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.
Organizational Resilience of Carrianna
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Carrianna does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Carrianna 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Carrianna has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Carrianna 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Carrianna in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Carrianna has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Carrianna to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Carrianna in Restaurants industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Carrianna comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Carrianna has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Restaurants industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Carrianna have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Restaurants industry
– Carrianna 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 Carrianna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Carrianna are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Carrianna 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Carrianna is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Carrianna to provide better information regarding Restaurants 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 Carrianna, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Carrianna 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Carrianna has high operating costs in the Restaurants industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Carrianna lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Carrianna strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Carrianna 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 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 Carrianna supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Carrianna is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Carrianna vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Carrianna needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Restaurants industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Carrianna can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Carrianna is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Carrianna ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Carrianna still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Restaurants industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Carrianna has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Carrianna is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Carrianna needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Carrianna to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Carrianna has some of the most successful models in the Restaurants industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Carrianna should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Carrianna Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Carrianna are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Carrianna 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. Carrianna can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Carrianna 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Carrianna is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Carrianna can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, Carrianna can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Carrianna operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants 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 Carrianna 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Carrianna 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 Carrianna to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Carrianna can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Carrianna can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Carrianna has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Carrianna to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Carrianna to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Carrianna can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Carrianna in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Restaurants industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Carrianna 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 Carrianna to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Carrianna External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Carrianna are -
Increasing wage structure of Carrianna
– 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 Carrianna.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Carrianna 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 Restaurants industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Carrianna 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 Carrianna prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Carrianna in Restaurants industry. The Restaurants 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Carrianna is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Carrianna may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Restaurants sector.
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 Carrianna in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Carrianna business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Carrianna 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 Restaurants 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. Carrianna 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Carrianna 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Carrianna has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Carrianna needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Carrianna Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Carrianna 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 Carrianna 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 Carrianna 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 Carrianna 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 Carrianna needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
