Speedy Global (540) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Speedy Global (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Speedy Global is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Speedy Global

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Speedy Global can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Speedy Global, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Speedy Global 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Speedy Global can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Speedy Global
2. Improving business portfolio management of Speedy Global
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Speedy Global

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Strengths of Speedy Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Speedy Global are -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry

– Speedy Global has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Speedy Global to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Speedy Global to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Speedy Global has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Speedy Global have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Speedy Global 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.

High brand equity

– Speedy Global has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Speedy Global to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Speedy Global emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Speedy Global comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Speedy Global in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Speedy Global is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Ability to lead change in Apparel/Accessories

– Speedy Global is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Speedy Global in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Speedy Global in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Speedy Global has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Speedy Global to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Diverse revenue streams

– Speedy Global is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Speedy Global 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry

– Speedy Global is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

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Weaknesses of Speedy Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Speedy Global are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Speedy Global is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Speedy Global 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Speedy Global is just above the Apparel/Accessories industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Speedy Global is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, but Speedy Global needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Speedy Global to focus more on services in the Apparel/Accessories industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Lack of clear differentiation of Speedy Global products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Speedy Global needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Speedy Global 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Speedy Global strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Speedy Global 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Speedy Global needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Speedy Global 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Speedy Global, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Apparel/Accessories 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Apparel/Accessories industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Speedy Global 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

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Speedy Global Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Speedy Global are -

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Speedy Global in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now Speedy Global 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, Speedy Global can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Speedy Global operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Speedy Global in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Speedy Global 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Speedy Global has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Apparel/Accessories sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Speedy Global to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Speedy Global to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Buying journey improvements

– Speedy Global can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Speedy Global can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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 Speedy Global 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Speedy Global can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Speedy Global can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Speedy Global is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Speedy Global can utilize new technology in the field of Apparel/Accessories industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Speedy Global 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.

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Threats Speedy Global External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Speedy Global 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.

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. Speedy Global 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.

Environmental challenges

– Speedy Global 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. Speedy Global can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.

Increasing wage structure of Speedy Global

– 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 Speedy Global.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Speedy Global has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Speedy Global needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Speedy Global 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Speedy Global may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories 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 Speedy Global in the Apparel/Accessories sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global prominent markets.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Speedy Global in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Speedy Global 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Speedy Global 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Apparel/Accessories industry are lowering. It can presents Speedy Global with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Apparel/Accessories sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Speedy Global Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global 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 Speedy Global needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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