Swot Analysis for Crocodile

Crocodile is Singapore original iconic brand founded by Data Tan Hints in 1947. They are the pioneer in men’s fashion and started with one product the legendary Crocodile shirt. Crocodile brand is now an international man ; ladies fashion and lifestyle brand that produce quality and modern fashion wear.

Current Operations

The company has actually revamped their inventory management system from an in- house system to a customized system, ensuring seamless integration between POS (point-of-sale), inventory management and financial systems to improve efficiencies ND visibility. This holistic integration allowed smooth operations of inventory between retail outlets and internal operation management (Microsoft, 2008). Crocodile research and development in Men and Ladies fashion are done prior one year to the fashion seasons.

Their team of designers gets their inspired design of the Crocodile collections through extensive market research from international fashion shows and events (Microsoft, 2008). Target Audience Crocodile a pioneer label had been well known for providing reasonable price apparel targeting audiences from lower to middle class earners. In 2004, Crocodile had gone through an extensive re-branding exercise in order to become “the leading fashion provider in Asia” (Microsoft, 2008).

Hence, Crocodile’s business target is now mid- to large-sized corporations who have spending power and wants to look presentable during office hours and stylish after work. This segment consists of people who have business appointments with business associates and functions to attend after work.

Product Offerings

Crocodile offers a wide range of products under the organization. From men’s wear, Crocodile has evolved to be a lifestyle brand for modern generation. It has diversified o include women’s wear, timepiece, footwear, luggage, household products and children’s wear (Crocodile, 2012).

Product Positioning

Crocodile has positioned themselves as a consistent and reliable provider of international fashion and lifestyle brand and having men’s apparel as their core product of the brand, it has now include a whole range of high quality and elegance women’s wear to their brand. Geographic Markets and Distribution Network total of 300 staffs across countries of Asia. With careful and strategic planning, the retail outlets were cleverly located in crowded heartland malls with busy crowds.

Financial Situation

Crocodile International Pet Ltd, a subsidiary of Crocodile Holding Pet Ltd, an investment holding company (Bloomberg, 2013) is not unable to disclose financial report to the public. But evidently, their local office building, Crocodile House, their re-branding exercise and revamping of existing outlets from 2004, official opening of North Sais’s headquarters in Shanghai in 2007 and their new outlet located at Next Shopping mall in 2010 clearly showed that they are financially stable.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths Weakness

1. Crocodile a well-established brand with stores in 13 Asia countries.
2. Crocodile is a socially responsible company as they are frequently involved in charity works such as rebuilding a school in Sir Lankan which was destroyed by 2004 Tsunami
3. They are also involved in sponsorships in events such as being the main apparel sponsor for Youth Olympic Games 2010 (Singapore 2010 News Room, 2009) and sponsoring clothing to the Sir Lankan Youth Olympic team (Emerald Shirts Press Release, 2010).
4. Strategic locations of shop floor in various shopping malls located in various parts of Singapore.

Most of them are near to MR. Stations that provide customers with convenience. They have specific market segmentation. Targeting on working adult with spending power. By doing so, they are able focus on their targeted group and come up with products that appeal.

1. Lacked of niche product and design innovation that differentiate themselves from other apparel brands.
2. Hence, people will still have the perception that Crocodile apparel is for older generation group of people.
3. Lacked of personalize and customize service offering. Egg: Alteration, tailoring services
4.  Apparels are mainly catered for Asian size, which are usually small and petite.
5. Unclear market positioning, as they are not able to specify targeted group of consumers. Although they have re-branded their product
6. Lack of growth in new technology in fabric and trend such as using Organic cotton, Non-iron material shirt.
7. Lack of price competitiveness as their price is not affordable for younger generation.

Opportunities Threats

1. Create new market segmentation to divide the wide target audience. Egg: Crocodile Youngster for age group 18 – rays.
2. They can provide online shopping portal and let consumers to buy clothes online. This will create convenience to busy working adults to buy their clothes anytime, anywhere.
3. Create a virtual dressing room via online portal where they will be able to visually try on their clothes online. This will help consumer to save time on trying their clothes during peak hours.
4. They can manufacture plus size clothing that suits the market group of bigger ladies and men.
5. Crocodile can provide Sales Operating Procedure (SOP) training to all the staffs, especially frontline staffs that have direct contact with the consumers, allowing them to be equipped with the skills and knowledge on their products. This is to ensure that Crocodile’s frontline staffs, which are the brand ambassadors, can readily offer advice to their consumers on the products. This will in turn generate more sales revenue.
6. Future store can be set up in renowned malls like ION or Paragon in order to cater for consumers of different target group. This is to bring up their product positioning in order to compete with competitors and to maximize its market share.
7. Customer’s initials on the shirts/pants.
8. Provide a good exchange/refund policy. Egg: extending exchange/refund policy to within 30 days. It gives consumer a better impression of the brand, their product laity and services.
9. They can create brand awareness with more promotions, campaigns or advertisement. Egg: Introducing a brand ambassador to create an impacting brand image. Promoting their new launch by advertising in newspaper, trains, on buses, taxis etc.
10. 1Maintain consumers profile and create mailing list in order to update their potential consumers of their new launch, have a VII close door sales for their member etc.

Strong competitors like Lactose, Ezra, Marks & Spencer, 62000 who are expanding very rapidly.  With the constant competition of new labels from Hong Kong, China and European entries consumers are having more demands on the choice of products. Their apparel designs are easily replicable, as they do not have any unique selling point. With the advancements of technology, more and more people choose to shop online instead. Crocodile sales growth is highly challenged by the absence of online transactions for customers to view and purchase its products. This inaccessibility restricted them to explore alternatives such as competitor’s websites and product launches at the expense of Crocodiles’ branding awareness and sales growth. Over-taking of market segment due to poor pricing strategy.