Bigbloc Construction (BIGB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction - Raw Materials
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bigbloc Construction (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bigbloc Construction is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bigbloc Construction
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bigbloc Construction can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bigbloc Construction, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bigbloc Construction
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bigbloc Construction
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bigbloc Construction
Strengths of Bigbloc Construction | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bigbloc Construction are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bigbloc Construction 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.
Analytics focus
– Bigbloc Construction 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 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bigbloc Construction 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
– Bigbloc Construction has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bigbloc Construction to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bigbloc Construction has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction - Raw Materials industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bigbloc Construction have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bigbloc Construction has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bigbloc Construction 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
– Bigbloc Construction is one of the most innovative firm in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Organizational Resilience of Bigbloc Construction
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bigbloc Construction does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Bigbloc Construction has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bigbloc Construction to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bigbloc Construction to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bigbloc Construction is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This has provided Bigbloc Construction 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.
Training and development
– Bigbloc Construction 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.
Learning organization
- Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bigbloc Construction emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Bigbloc Construction | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bigbloc Construction are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bigbloc Construction 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bigbloc Construction is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bigbloc Construction to provide better information regarding Construction - Raw Materials products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Bigbloc Construction ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Bigbloc Construction products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bigbloc Construction needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, Bigbloc Construction 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Bigbloc Construction strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bigbloc Construction 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
Bigbloc Construction 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bigbloc Construction has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction - Raw Materials industry over the last five years. Bigbloc Construction even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Bigbloc Construction needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bigbloc Construction 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 - Raw Materials industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bigbloc Construction 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.
Bigbloc Construction Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bigbloc Construction are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction - Raw Materials industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bigbloc Construction can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bigbloc Construction 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bigbloc Construction 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Bigbloc Construction 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bigbloc Construction can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bigbloc Construction operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can help Bigbloc Construction to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bigbloc Construction products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Bigbloc Construction in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. Now Bigbloc Construction can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bigbloc Construction can develop new processes and procedures in Construction - Raw Materials 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.
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. Bigbloc Construction 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. Bigbloc Construction 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bigbloc Construction 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bigbloc Construction are -
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 Bigbloc Construction business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Bigbloc Construction 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bigbloc Construction is facing in Construction - Raw Materials sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Bigbloc Construction
– 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 Bigbloc Construction.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bigbloc Construction 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction - Raw Materials industry are lowering. It can presents Bigbloc Construction with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction - Raw Materials 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 Bigbloc Construction.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bigbloc Construction 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.
Environmental challenges
– Bigbloc Construction 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. Bigbloc Construction can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry.
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. Bigbloc Construction needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bigbloc Construction has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bigbloc Construction 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Bigbloc Construction 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bigbloc Construction Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction 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 Bigbloc Construction needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.