SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brigade Enterprises (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brigade Enterprises is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices,
wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brigade Enterprises
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brigade Enterprises can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brigade Enterprises, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brigade Enterprises
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brigade Enterprises
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brigade Enterprises
Strengths of Brigade Enterprises | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Brigade Enterprises are -
High brand equity
– Brigade Enterprises has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brigade Enterprises to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Brigade Enterprises is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Brigade Enterprises has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Brigade Enterprises 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Brigade Enterprises comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction 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.
Training and development
– Brigade Enterprises has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Brigade Enterprises digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Brigade Enterprises 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Brigade Enterprises is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Brigade Enterprises 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Brigade Enterprises is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Brigade Enterprises has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Brigade Enterprises staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brigade Enterprises emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Brigade Enterprises has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brigade Enterprises to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brigade Enterprises to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Brigade Enterprises is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Brigade Enterprises in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Brigade Enterprises | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Brigade Enterprises are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Brigade Enterprises is just above the Construction 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brigade Enterprises has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Brigade Enterprises 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Brigade Enterprises needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Brigade Enterprises is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Brigade Enterprises has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Brigade Enterprises is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Brigade Enterprises needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brigade Enterprises to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Brigade Enterprises needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Brigade Enterprises can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Brigade Enterprises is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Brigade Enterprises needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on Brigade Enterprises ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Brigade Enterprises still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Brigade Enterprises has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Brigade Enterprises supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Brigade Enterprises is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Brigade Enterprises vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Brigade Enterprises has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Brigade Enterprises should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Brigade Enterprises Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Brigade Enterprises are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brigade Enterprises to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Brigade Enterprises to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Brigade Enterprises 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 Construction Services industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Brigade Enterprises can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Brigade Enterprises can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Brigade Enterprises operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Brigade Enterprises in the Construction Services industry. Now Brigade Enterprises 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 Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Brigade Enterprises 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. Brigade Enterprises 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Brigade Enterprises can develop new processes and procedures in Construction 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Brigade Enterprises has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Brigade Enterprises to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Brigade Enterprises to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brigade Enterprises can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Brigade Enterprises 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.
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 Brigade Enterprises 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, Brigade Enterprises 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.
Threats Brigade Enterprises External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Brigade Enterprises are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Brigade Enterprises is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Brigade Enterprises 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 Construction Services industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Brigade Enterprises 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Brigade Enterprises with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
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. Brigade Enterprises 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Brigade Enterprises has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brigade Enterprises needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction 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.
Increasing wage structure of Brigade Enterprises
– 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 Brigade Enterprises.
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 Brigade Enterprises business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Brigade Enterprises can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Brigade Enterprises 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. Brigade Enterprises can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Brigade Enterprises 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 Construction Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brigade Enterprises Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises 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 Brigade Enterprises needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
