SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Adelaide Brighton (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Adelaide Brighton is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Adelaide Brighton
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Adelaide Brighton can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Adelaide Brighton, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Adelaide Brighton
2. Improving business portfolio management of Adelaide Brighton
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Adelaide Brighton
Strengths of Adelaide Brighton | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Adelaide Brighton are -
Ability to lead change in Construction - Raw Materials
– Adelaide Brighton is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Adelaide Brighton in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Adelaide Brighton is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Adelaide Brighton is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Adelaide Brighton 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Adelaide Brighton is one of the most innovative firm in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Analytics focus
– Adelaide Brighton 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 Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Adelaide Brighton comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
High brand equity
– Adelaide Brighton has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Adelaide Brighton to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Adelaide Brighton has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Adelaide Brighton 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Adelaide Brighton in Construction - Raw Materials industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Adelaide Brighton has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Adelaide Brighton staying ahead in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Adelaide Brighton 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.
Weaknesses of Adelaide Brighton | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Adelaide Brighton are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Adelaide Brighton is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, but Adelaide Brighton needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Adelaide Brighton to focus more on services in the Construction - Raw Materials industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Adelaide Brighton 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Adelaide Brighton products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Adelaide Brighton needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Adelaide Brighton needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction - Raw Materials industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Adelaide Brighton can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Adelaide Brighton is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Adelaide Brighton has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Adelaide Brighton is just above the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Adelaide Brighton 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.
High dependence on Adelaide Brighton ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Adelaide Brighton still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction - Raw Materials industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Adelaide Brighton has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Adelaide Brighton, in the dynamic environment of Construction - Raw Materials industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Adelaide Brighton has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Adelaide Brighton supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Adelaide Brighton is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Adelaide Brighton vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Adelaide Brighton has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Adelaide Brighton Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Adelaide Brighton are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Adelaide Brighton can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Adelaide Brighton 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction - Raw Materials industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Adelaide Brighton 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. Adelaide Brighton 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Adelaide Brighton has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Adelaide Brighton to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Adelaide Brighton to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Adelaide Brighton 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Adelaide Brighton in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. Now Adelaide Brighton can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Adelaide Brighton 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Adelaide Brighton can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Adelaide Brighton operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton 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
– Adelaide Brighton can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Adelaide Brighton is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Adelaide Brighton can utilize new technology in the field of Construction - Raw Materials industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Adelaide Brighton in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Adelaide Brighton External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Adelaide Brighton are -
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. Adelaide Brighton needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Adelaide Brighton business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Adelaide Brighton 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 - Raw Materials industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Adelaide Brighton 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. Adelaide Brighton can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry.
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 Adelaide Brighton.
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. Adelaide Brighton 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Adelaide Brighton 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 - Raw Materials industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction - Raw Materials industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Adelaide Brighton can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Adelaide Brighton in Construction - Raw Materials industry. The Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Adelaide Brighton 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 - Raw Materials industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Adelaide Brighton has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Adelaide Brighton needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Adelaide Brighton 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Adelaide Brighton Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton 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 Adelaide Brighton needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.