SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mayfield Childcare (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mayfield Childcare is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mayfield Childcare
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mayfield Childcare can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mayfield Childcare, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mayfield Childcare
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mayfield Childcare
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mayfield Childcare
Strengths of Mayfield Childcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mayfield Childcare are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mayfield Childcare comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Mayfield Childcare is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mayfield Childcare 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mayfield Childcare in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Mayfield Childcare has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mayfield Childcare to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mayfield Childcare digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mayfield Childcare 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.
Analytics focus
– Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services 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.
Learning organization
- Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mayfield Childcare emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mayfield Childcare is one of the leading players in the Personal Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mayfield Childcare 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.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Mayfield Childcare is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mayfield Childcare in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mayfield Childcare in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mayfield Childcare has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mayfield Childcare have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Mayfield Childcare | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mayfield Childcare are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Mayfield Childcare needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mayfield Childcare is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Mayfield Childcare needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mayfield Childcare to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mayfield Childcare is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mayfield Childcare to provide better information regarding Personal Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Mayfield Childcare is just above the Personal Services 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mayfield Childcare is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mayfield Childcare has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Mayfield Childcare should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Mayfield Childcare strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Mayfield Childcare 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.
High dependence on Mayfield Childcare ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mayfield Childcare still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mayfield Childcare has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Mayfield Childcare has high operating costs in the Personal Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Mayfield Childcare lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Mayfield Childcare Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mayfield Childcare are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mayfield Childcare can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mayfield Childcare 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.
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 Mayfield Childcare 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
– Mayfield Childcare can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mayfield Childcare has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mayfield Childcare to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mayfield Childcare to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mayfield Childcare 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mayfield Childcare in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Mayfield Childcare in the Personal Services industry. Now Mayfield Childcare can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mayfield Childcare can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Mayfield Childcare can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mayfield Childcare 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mayfield Childcare can develop new processes and procedures in Personal Services 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mayfield Childcare can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Mayfield Childcare External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mayfield Childcare are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Mayfield Childcare with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mayfield Childcare has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mayfield Childcare needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal Services 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.
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 Mayfield Childcare business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Mayfield Childcare 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. Mayfield Childcare can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mayfield Childcare 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
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. Mayfield Childcare needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services 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 Mayfield Childcare in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mayfield Childcare may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Mayfield Childcare
– 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 Mayfield Childcare.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mayfield Childcare 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mayfield Childcare Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare 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 Mayfield Childcare needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
