SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for J Kumar Infraprojects (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , J Kumar Infraprojects is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of J Kumar Infraprojects
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that J Kumar Infraprojects can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the J Kumar Infraprojects, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of J Kumar Infraprojects
2. Improving business portfolio management of J Kumar Infraprojects
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 J Kumar Infraprojects
Strengths of J Kumar Infraprojects | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of J Kumar Infraprojects are -
Organizational Resilience of J Kumar Infraprojects
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing J Kumar Infraprojects does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– J Kumar Infraprojects has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of J Kumar Infraprojects have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at J Kumar Infraprojects emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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)
– J Kumar Infraprojects has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
High brand equity
– J Kumar Infraprojects has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled J Kumar Infraprojects to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of J Kumar Infraprojects in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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 Services industry. The technology infrastructure of India 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.
Training and development
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– J Kumar Infraprojects is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of J Kumar Infraprojects are -
High dependence on J Kumar Infraprojects ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at J Kumar Infraprojects, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. J Kumar Infraprojects has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though J Kumar Infraprojects 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. J Kumar Infraprojects should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, J Kumar Infraprojects needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of J Kumar Infraprojects, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of J Kumar Infraprojects products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, J Kumar Infraprojects needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Employees’ less understanding of J Kumar Infraprojects strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
J Kumar Infraprojects Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of J Kumar Infraprojects are -
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. J Kumar Infraprojects 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. J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help J Kumar Infraprojects to increase its market reach. J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
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. J Kumar Infraprojects can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, J Kumar Infraprojects is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. J Kumar Infraprojects can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Manufacturing automation
– J Kumar Infraprojects can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
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 J Kumar Infraprojects in the Construction Services industry. Now J Kumar Infraprojects 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, J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects J Kumar Infraprojects can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help J Kumar Infraprojects to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats J Kumar Infraprojects External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of J Kumar Infraprojects are -
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. J Kumar Infraprojects 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 Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents J Kumar Infraprojects with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
Environmental challenges
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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. J Kumar Infraprojects can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for J Kumar Infraprojects in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.
Regulatory challenges
– J Kumar Infraprojects 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.
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 J Kumar Infraprojects business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. J Kumar Infraprojects needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. J Kumar Infraprojects can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that J Kumar Infraprojects is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of J Kumar Infraprojects Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects 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 J Kumar Infraprojects needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
