SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Seamec Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Seamec Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Seamec Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Seamec Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Seamec Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Seamec Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Seamec Ltd
Strengths of Seamec Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Seamec Ltd are -
High brand equity
– Seamec Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Seamec Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Seamec Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Seamec Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Seamec Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Seamec Ltd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Seamec Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Seamec Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Seamec Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Seamec Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Seamec Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Seamec Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Seamec Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Seamec Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Seamec Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Seamec Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Seamec Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Seamec Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Seamec Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Seamec Ltd are -
High dependence on Seamec Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Seamec Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Seamec Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Seamec Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Seamec Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Seamec Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Seamec Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Seamec Ltd 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Seamec Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Seamec Ltd 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.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Seamec Ltd 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Seamec Ltd is just above the Water Transportation 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, Seamec Ltd 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 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 Seamec Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Seamec Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Seamec Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Seamec Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Seamec Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Seamec Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Seamec Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Seamec Ltd are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Seamec Ltd in the Water Transportation industry. Now Seamec Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Seamec Ltd 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
– Seamec Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Seamec Ltd to increase its market reach. Seamec Ltd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Seamec Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Seamec Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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
– Seamec Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Seamec Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Seamec Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Seamec Ltd 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Seamec Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Seamec Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Seamec Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Seamec Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Seamec Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Seamec Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Seamec Ltd are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Seamec Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.
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 Seamec Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Seamec Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
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 Seamec Ltd.
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. Seamec Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Seamec Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Seamec Ltd 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. Seamec Ltd 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.
Environmental challenges
– Seamec Ltd 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. Seamec Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Seamec Ltd in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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 wage structure of Seamec Ltd
– 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 Seamec Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Seamec Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd 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 Seamec Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.