Andre Volkoff Malaysia SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Andre Volkoff Malaysia
Martin Doyle, manager of a Canadian-Malaysian joint venture set up for the manufacture of custom-made ornamental building products in Malaysia, must reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable positions of the two partners. The case illustrates how the business environment in emerging markets can be simultaneously attractive and challenging. Success in such ventures is contingent upon an accurate assessment of the relative positions of the partners as well as the ability to adopt creative solutions.
Authors :: Jaideep Anand, Prescott C. Ensign, Ken McReynolds
Swot Analysis of "Andre Volkoff Malaysia" written by Jaideep Anand, Prescott C. Ensign, Ken McReynolds includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Malaysia Ornamental facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Andre Volkoff Malaysia case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Joint ventures and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Andre Volkoff Malaysia casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Andre Volkoff Malaysia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Andre Volkoff Malaysia case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Malaysia Ornamental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Malaysia Ornamental 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 Andre Volkoff Malaysia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Andre Volkoff Malaysia case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Malaysia Ornamental
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Malaysia Ornamental
Strengths Andre Volkoff Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Malaysia Ornamental in Andre Volkoff Malaysia Harvard Business Review case study are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Malaysia Ornamental is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Andre Volkoff Malaysia case study 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.
Learning organization
- Malaysia Ornamental 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 Malaysia Ornamental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Andre Volkoff Malaysia Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Malaysia Ornamental is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Andre Volkoff Malaysia are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Malaysia Ornamental has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Andre Volkoff Malaysia Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
High brand equity
– Malaysia Ornamental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Malaysia Ornamental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Malaysia Ornamental has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Malaysia Ornamental has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Andre Volkoff Malaysia HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Andre Volkoff Malaysia firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Malaysia Ornamental to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Malaysia Ornamental to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Malaysia Ornamental has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Andre Volkoff Malaysia Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Malaysia Ornamental digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Malaysia Ornamental in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Andre Volkoff Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Andre Volkoff Malaysia are -
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Andre Volkoff Malaysia HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Malaysia Ornamental has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Malaysia Ornamental 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 industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Malaysia Ornamental 's lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Malaysia Ornamental has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Malaysia Ornamental 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 bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jaideep Anand, Prescott C. Ensign, Ken McReynolds suggests that, Malaysia Ornamental 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 industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia, in the dynamic environment Malaysia Ornamental has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Malaysia Ornamental has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia, it seems that the employees of Malaysia Ornamental 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, Malaysia Ornamental is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Malaysia Ornamental has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Andre Volkoff Malaysia should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Opportunities Andre Volkoff Malaysia | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Malaysia Ornamental 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
– Malaysia Ornamental can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Malaysia Ornamental can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Andre Volkoff Malaysia suggest that firm 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 Malaysia Ornamental to increase its market reach. Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Malaysia Ornamental 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, as suggested in case study, Andre Volkoff Malaysia, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Malaysia Ornamental in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Malaysia Ornamental can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Malaysia Ornamental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Malaysia Ornamental can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Malaysia Ornamental operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution 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 Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Malaysia Ornamental 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.
Threats Andre Volkoff Malaysia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Malaysia Ornamental 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 the industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Malaysia Ornamental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia, Malaysia Ornamental may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Malaysia Ornamental in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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.
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 Malaysia Ornamental in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Malaysia Ornamental 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. Malaysia Ornamental can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Malaysia Ornamental 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia .
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 Malaysia Ornamental business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Malaysia Ornamental
– 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 Malaysia Ornamental.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Malaysia Ornamental 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.
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 Malaysia Ornamental.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Andre Volkoff Malaysia Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia 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 the case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia 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 the Harvard case study Andre Volkoff Malaysia 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 Andre Volkoff Malaysia is 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 Malaysia Ornamental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.