SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Silver Heritage (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Silver Heritage is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Silver Heritage can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Silver Heritage, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Silver Heritage
2. Improving business portfolio management of Silver Heritage
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Casinos & Gaming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Silver Heritage
Strengths of Silver Heritage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Silver Heritage are -
Ability to lead change in Casinos & Gaming
– Silver Heritage is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Casinos & Gaming industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Silver Heritage in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Silver Heritage 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Silver Heritage in Casinos & Gaming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Silver Heritage is one of the most innovative firm in Casinos & Gaming sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Silver Heritage in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Silver Heritage has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Silver Heritage to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Silver Heritage is present in almost all the verticals within the Casinos & Gaming industry. This has provided Silver Heritage 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.
Training and development
– Silver Heritage has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Silver Heritage is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Silver Heritage has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Silver Heritage 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
– Silver Heritage has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Casinos & Gaming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Silver Heritage have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Silver Heritage has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Silver Heritage to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Casinos & Gaming industry
– Silver Heritage is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Silver Heritage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Silver Heritage are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Silver Heritage, in the dynamic environment of Casinos & Gaming industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Silver Heritage has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Silver Heritage has some of the most successful models in the Casinos & Gaming industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Silver Heritage should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Silver Heritage 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Silver Heritage needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Casinos & Gaming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Silver Heritage can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Silver Heritage is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Silver Heritage is just above the Casinos & Gaming 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Silver Heritage has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Casinos & Gaming industry over the last five years. Silver Heritage 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 dependence on Silver Heritage ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Silver Heritage still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Casinos & Gaming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Silver Heritage has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Silver Heritage needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Silver Heritage 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Silver Heritage is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry, but Silver Heritage needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Silver Heritage to focus more on services in the Casinos & Gaming 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, Silver Heritage is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Silver Heritage to provide better information regarding Casinos & Gaming products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Silver Heritage Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Silver Heritage are -
Manufacturing automation
– Silver Heritage can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Silver Heritage to increase its market reach. Silver Heritage 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
– Silver Heritage has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Casinos & Gaming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Silver Heritage to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Silver Heritage to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Silver Heritage is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Silver Heritage can utilize new technology in the field of Casinos & Gaming industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Silver Heritage 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Casinos & Gaming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Silver Heritage 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. Silver Heritage 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Silver Heritage 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.
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 Silver Heritage 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.
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. Silver Heritage can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Silver Heritage has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Casinos & Gaming industry. This can help Silver Heritage to build a more holistic ecosystem for Silver Heritage products in the Casinos & Gaming industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Casinos & Gaming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Silver Heritage 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
– Silver Heritage 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Silver Heritage in the Casinos & Gaming industry. Now Silver Heritage can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Silver Heritage External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Silver Heritage are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Silver Heritage is facing in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Silver Heritage in Casinos & Gaming industry. The Casinos & Gaming 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage prominent markets.
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 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. Silver Heritage needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Casinos & Gaming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Silver Heritage may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Casinos & Gaming sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Casinos & Gaming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Silver Heritage can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Silver Heritage 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Silver Heritage 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.
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 Silver Heritage business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Silver Heritage 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. Silver Heritage can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry.
Increasing wage structure of Silver Heritage
– 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 Silver Heritage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Silver Heritage has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Casinos & Gaming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Silver Heritage needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Silver Heritage Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage 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 Silver Heritage needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.