SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for MITCON Engineering (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , MITCON Engineering is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of MITCON Engineering
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that MITCON Engineering can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the MITCON Engineering, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of MITCON Engineering
2. Improving business portfolio management of MITCON Engineering
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 MITCON Engineering
Strengths of MITCON Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of MITCON Engineering are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of MITCON Engineering in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– MITCON Engineering is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided MITCON Engineering 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.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of MITCON Engineering in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. MITCON Engineering has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps MITCON Engineering to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Organizational Resilience of MITCON Engineering
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing MITCON Engineering does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– MITCON Engineering has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – MITCON Engineering 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.
Innovation driven organization
– MITCON Engineering is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Weaknesses of MITCON Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of MITCON Engineering are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
MITCON Engineering 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.
Need for greater diversity
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at MITCON Engineering 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, MITCON Engineering 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 Services industry over the last five years. MITCON Engineering 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of MITCON Engineering is just above the Construction Services 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of MITCON Engineering, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, MITCON Engineering is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help MITCON Engineering to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though MITCON Engineering 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. MITCON Engineering should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as MITCON Engineering is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 MITCON Engineering supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, MITCON Engineering is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left MITCON Engineering vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, MITCON Engineering has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract MITCON Engineering lucrative customers.
MITCON Engineering Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of MITCON Engineering are -
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 MITCON Engineering in the Construction Services industry. Now MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of MITCON Engineering has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help MITCON Engineering to build a more holistic ecosystem for MITCON Engineering products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, MITCON Engineering can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that MITCON Engineering 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, MITCON Engineering is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. MITCON Engineering 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for MITCON Engineering in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for MITCON Engineering 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 MITCON Engineering 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
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Threats MITCON Engineering External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of MITCON Engineering 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. MITCON Engineering 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– MITCON Engineering 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.
Regulatory challenges
– MITCON Engineering 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.
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. MITCON Engineering can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 MITCON Engineering.
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. MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of MITCON Engineering
– 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 MITCON Engineering.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– MITCON Engineering 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.
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.
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 MITCON Engineering business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of MITCON Engineering Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering 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 MITCON Engineering needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.