SPML Infra Ltd (SPML) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SPML Infra Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SPML Infra Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SPML Infra Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SPML Infra Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SPML Infra Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of SPML Infra Ltd
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 SPML Infra Ltd
Strengths of SPML Infra Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of SPML Infra Ltd are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Analytics focus
– SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– SPML Infra Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. SPML Infra 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– SPML Infra Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of SPML Infra Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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
– SPML Infra Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled SPML Infra Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– SPML Infra Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of SPML Infra Ltd in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– SPML Infra Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled SPML Infra Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For SPML Infra Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. SPML Infra 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.
Organizational Resilience of SPML Infra Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing SPML Infra Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of SPML Infra Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SPML Infra Ltd are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that SPML Infra Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at SPML Infra Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as SPML Infra Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– SPML Infra 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of SPML Infra Ltd 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 SPML Infra Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, SPML Infra Ltd 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of SPML Infra Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of SPML Infra 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of SPML Infra Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but SPML Infra Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help SPML Infra Ltd to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SPML Infra Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, SPML Infra Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SPML Infra 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.
SPML Infra Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of SPML Infra Ltd are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, SPML Infra 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.
Loyalty marketing
– SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, SPML Infra Ltd 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 SPML Infra Ltd 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
– SPML Infra Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– SPML Infra Ltd 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 SPML Infra Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help SPML Infra Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– SPML Infra 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help SPML Infra Ltd to increase its market reach. SPML Infra 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, SPML Infra Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that SPML Infra Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, SPML Infra Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of SPML Infra Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help SPML Infra Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for SPML Infra Ltd products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. SPML Infra Ltd 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. SPML Infra Ltd 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.
Threats SPML Infra Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of SPML Infra Ltd are -
Environmental challenges
– SPML Infra 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. SPML Infra Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on SPML Infra 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– SPML Infra Ltd 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 Services 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 SPML Infra Ltd.
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 SPML Infra Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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, SPML Infra 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 Construction Services sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– SPML Infra Ltd 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.
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 SPML Infra Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. SPML Infra Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for SPML Infra Ltd 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.
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.
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. SPML Infra 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SPML Infra Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra 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 SPML Infra Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
