SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gayatri Highways (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gayatri Highways is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gayatri Highways can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gayatri Highways, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gayatri Highways
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gayatri Highways
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 Gayatri Highways
Strengths of Gayatri Highways | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gayatri Highways are -
Learning organization
- Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gayatri Highways emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Gayatri Highways has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Gayatri Highways to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Gayatri Highways 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Gayatri Highways has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gayatri Highways to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gayatri Highways to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gayatri Highways in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Gayatri Highways has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gayatri Highways to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Gayatri Highways
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gayatri Highways does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Gayatri Highways is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gayatri Highways digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gayatri Highways 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.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Gayatri Highways 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gayatri Highways is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Gayatri Highways 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.
Weaknesses of Gayatri Highways | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gayatri Highways are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gayatri Highways, 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gayatri Highways 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. Gayatri Highways 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Gayatri Highways strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gayatri Highways 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Gayatri Highways, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gayatri Highways has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Gayatri Highways supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Gayatri Highways is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gayatri Highways vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gayatri Highways 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gayatri Highways is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gayatri Highways is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Gayatri Highways needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gayatri Highways to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gayatri Highways products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gayatri Highways needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gayatri Highways 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Gayatri Highways 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.
Gayatri Highways Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gayatri Highways are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gayatri Highways can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Gayatri Highways 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gayatri Highways 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Gayatri Highways can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Gayatri Highways operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
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. Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways to increase its market reach. Gayatri Highways 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.
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 Gayatri Highways in the Construction Services industry. Now Gayatri Highways can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Gayatri Highways 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. Gayatri Highways 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gayatri Highways has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Gayatri Highways to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gayatri Highways products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Gayatri Highways can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gayatri Highways 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.
Threats Gayatri Highways External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gayatri Highways 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. Gayatri Highways 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.
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 Gayatri Highways.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gayatri Highways 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.
Environmental challenges
– Gayatri Highways 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. Gayatri Highways can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gayatri Highways 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gayatri Highways
– 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 Gayatri Highways.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways prominent markets.
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. Gayatri Highways can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gayatri Highways 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Gayatri Highways with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
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 Gayatri Highways business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gayatri Highways Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways 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 Gayatri Highways needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
