8VIC (8VI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Schools
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for 8VIC (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , 8VIC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that 8VIC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 8VIC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 8VIC 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 8VIC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of 8VIC
2. Improving business portfolio management of 8VIC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of 8VIC
Strengths of 8VIC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 8VIC are -
Organizational Resilience of 8VIC
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing 8VIC does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 8VIC in Schools industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the 8VIC 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Schools industry
– 8VIC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– 8VIC is present in almost all the verticals within the Schools industry. This has provided 8VIC 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Schools industry
– 8VIC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 8VIC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Schools industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 8VIC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that 8VIC 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 8VIC in the Services sector have low bargaining power. 8VIC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps 8VIC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of 8VIC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools 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.
Digital Transformation in Schools industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For 8VIC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. 8VIC 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.
Training and development
– 8VIC 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.
Analytics focus
– 8VIC 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 Schools 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.
Weaknesses of 8VIC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 8VIC are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, 8VIC is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help 8VIC to provide better information regarding Schools 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 8VIC is just above the Schools 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, 8VIC has high operating costs in the Schools industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract 8VIC lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that 8VIC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Schools industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at 8VIC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 8VIC is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though 8VIC has some of the most successful models in the Schools industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. 8VIC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on 8VIC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of 8VIC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Schools industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though 8VIC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, 8VIC has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Schools industry over the last five years. 8VIC 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Schools industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, 8VIC 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 Schools industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, 8VIC 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, 8VIC 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at 8VIC, in the dynamic environment of Schools industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. 8VIC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
8VIC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of 8VIC are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 8VIC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Schools industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 8VIC 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 8VIC 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 8VIC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– 8VIC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Schools 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 8VIC 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Schools industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. 8VIC can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 8VIC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Schools sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled 8VIC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 8VIC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– 8VIC 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for 8VIC 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 8VIC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 8VIC can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 8VIC operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Schools industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for 8VIC in the Schools industry. Now 8VIC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 8VIC can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. 8VIC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats 8VIC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of 8VIC are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, 8VIC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Schools sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on 8VIC 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 Schools industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– 8VIC 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 Schools industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 8VIC 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 8VIC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. 8VIC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Schools industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– 8VIC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 8VIC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
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. 8VIC 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Schools industry are lowering. It can presents 8VIC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Schools sector.
Increasing wage structure of 8VIC
– 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 8VIC.
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.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of 8VIC.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 8VIC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at 8VIC 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 8VIC 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 8VIC 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 8VIC 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 8VIC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
