MacPhersons (MRP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Gold & Silver
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for MacPhersons (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , MacPhersons is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that MacPhersons can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the MacPhersons, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of MacPhersons
2. Improving business portfolio management of MacPhersons
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Gold & Silver sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of MacPhersons
Strengths of MacPhersons | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of MacPhersons are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– MacPhersons is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of MacPhersons in Gold & Silver industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– MacPhersons is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Digital Transformation in Gold & Silver industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For MacPhersons digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. MacPhersons 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.
Ability to lead change in Gold & Silver
– MacPhersons is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Gold & Silver industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled MacPhersons in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of MacPhersons
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing MacPhersons does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Gold & Silver industry
– MacPhersons has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled MacPhersons to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Gold & Silver industry. The sustainable margins have also helped MacPhersons to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at MacPhersons emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the MacPhersons 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.
Innovation driven organization
– MacPhersons is one of the most innovative firm in Gold & Silver sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that MacPhersons 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– MacPhersons has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – MacPhersons staying ahead in the Gold & Silver industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of MacPhersons | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MacPhersons are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of MacPhersons is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Gold & Silver industry, but MacPhersons needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help MacPhersons to focus more on services in the Gold & Silver industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As MacPhersons is one of the leading players in the Gold & Silver industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, MacPhersons has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Gold & Silver industry over the last five years. MacPhersons even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
MacPhersons has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Gold & Silver industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, MacPhersons is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help MacPhersons to provide better information regarding Gold & Silver products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on MacPhersons ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of MacPhersons still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Gold & Silver industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though MacPhersons has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, MacPhersons 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of MacPhersons products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, MacPhersons needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Gold & Silver industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, MacPhersons 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Need for greater diversity
– MacPhersons 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that MacPhersons needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Gold & Silver industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at MacPhersons can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as MacPhersons is planning to shift buying processes online.
MacPhersons Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of MacPhersons are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at MacPhersons 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 Gold & Silver industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects MacPhersons can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, MacPhersons 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help MacPhersons to increase its market reach. MacPhersons 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– MacPhersons has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Gold & Silver sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled MacPhersons to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help MacPhersons to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, MacPhersons can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that MacPhersons operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Gold & Silver sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Gold & Silver industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. MacPhersons can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– MacPhersons 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for MacPhersons in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Gold & Silver industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Gold & Silver industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for MacPhersons in the Gold & Silver industry. Now MacPhersons can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats MacPhersons External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of MacPhersons are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that MacPhersons is facing in Gold & Silver sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. MacPhersons needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Gold & Silver industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 MacPhersons in the Gold & Silver sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– MacPhersons has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Gold & Silver industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, MacPhersons needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Gold & Silver 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for MacPhersons in Gold & Silver industry. The Gold & Silver 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– MacPhersons 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on MacPhersons 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 Gold & Silver industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Gold & Silver industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. MacPhersons can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– MacPhersons 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 Gold & Silver industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, MacPhersons may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Gold & Silver sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MacPhersons Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons 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 MacPhersons needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
