SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Chalmers Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Chalmers Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Chalmers Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chalmers Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Chalmers Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chalmers Ltd
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 Chalmers Ltd
Strengths of Chalmers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chalmers Ltd are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Ability to lead change in Trucking
– Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Chalmers Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chalmers Ltd in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Chalmers Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chalmers Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Chalmers Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Chalmers Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Trucking industry. This has provided Chalmers Ltd 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 Trucking industry
– Chalmers Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chalmers Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Trucking industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chalmers Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Chalmers Ltd in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Chalmers Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.
High brand equity
– Chalmers Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chalmers Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Chalmers Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Chalmers Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Chalmers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Chalmers Ltd are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Chalmers Ltd 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.
High dependence on Chalmers Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Chalmers Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Chalmers Ltd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chalmers Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Chalmers Ltd to provide better information regarding Trucking products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Chalmers Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Chalmers Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Chalmers Ltd 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Chalmers Ltd is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Trucking industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Trucking industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Chalmers Ltd 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Chalmers Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Chalmers Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Chalmers Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Chalmers Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Chalmers Ltd are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Chalmers Ltd 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.
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 Chalmers Ltd 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
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Chalmers Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Trucking industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Chalmers Ltd in the Trucking industry. Now Chalmers Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chalmers Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chalmers Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chalmers Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Chalmers Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chalmers Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Chalmers Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Chalmers Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Chalmers Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Chalmers Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Trucking industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Chalmers Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Chalmers Ltd are -
Regulatory challenges
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Chalmers Ltd 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 Trucking industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Chalmers Ltd
– 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 Chalmers Ltd.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
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. Chalmers Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Chalmers Ltd 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.
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 Chalmers Ltd is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Chalmers Ltd 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.
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 Chalmers Ltd.
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. Chalmers Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Chalmers Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd 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 Chalmers Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.