SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Silver Touch (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Silver Touch is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Silver Touch can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Silver Touch, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Silver Touch
2. Improving business portfolio management of Silver Touch
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Silver Touch
Strengths of Silver Touch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Silver Touch are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Silver Touch is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Silver Touch 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.
Organizational Resilience of Silver Touch
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Silver Touch does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Silver Touch is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Silver Touch has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Silver Touch 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Silver Touch is one of the most innovative firm in Software & Programming sector.
Learning organization
- Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Silver Touch emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Silver Touch 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.
Analytics focus
– Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Silver Touch 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Silver Touch has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Software & Programming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Silver Touch have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Silver Touch comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Software & Programming 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Software & Programming industry
– Silver Touch has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Silver Touch to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Software & Programming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Silver Touch to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Silver Touch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Silver Touch are -
Skills based hiring in Software & Programming industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Silver Touch 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Software & Programming industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Silver Touch is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Silver Touch to provide better information regarding Software & Programming products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Silver Touch strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Silver Touch 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Silver Touch is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Software & Programming industry in last five years.
High dependence on Silver Touch ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Silver Touch still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Software & Programming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Silver Touch has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Silver Touch needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Silver Touch 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Silver Touch needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Software & Programming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Silver Touch can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Silver Touch is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Silver Touch 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming industry using digital technology.
Silver Touch Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Silver Touch are -
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 Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Silver Touch in the Software & Programming industry. Now Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Silver Touch can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Software & Programming 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Software & Programming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Silver Touch 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. Silver Touch 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Silver Touch 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Silver Touch in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Software & Programming industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Silver Touch has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Software & Programming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Silver Touch to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Silver Touch to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Silver Touch has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Software & Programming industry. This can help Silver Touch to build a more holistic ecosystem for Silver Touch products in the Software & Programming industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Silver Touch can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Silver Touch to increase its market reach. Silver Touch 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Silver Touch 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Silver Touch External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Silver Touch are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Silver Touch has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Software & Programming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Silver Touch needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Software & Programming 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. Silver Touch 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.
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. Silver Touch needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Software & Programming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Software & Programming industry are lowering. It can presents Silver Touch with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Software & Programming sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Silver Touch 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 Software & Programming industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Silver Touch 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch prominent markets.
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 Silver Touch.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Silver Touch in Software & Programming industry. The Software & Programming 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.
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 Silver Touch business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Silver Touch in the Software & Programming sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Silver Touch Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch 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 Silver Touch needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
