SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bharati Defence (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bharati Defence is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bharati Defence can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bharati Defence, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bharati Defence
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bharati Defence
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bharati Defence
Strengths of Bharati Defence | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bharati Defence are -
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Bharati Defence is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Bharati Defence has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bharati Defence to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bharati Defence to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Bharati Defence
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bharati Defence does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bharati Defence is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Bharati Defence 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.
High brand equity
– Bharati Defence has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bharati Defence to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Bharati Defence is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bharati Defence 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bharati Defence in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Bharati Defence is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Bharati Defence in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bharati Defence emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bharati Defence has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bharati Defence staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bharati Defence has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bharati Defence 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.
Weaknesses of Bharati Defence | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bharati Defence are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bharati Defence has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bharati Defence lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bharati Defence is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Bharati Defence needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bharati Defence to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Bharati Defence needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Bharati Defence products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bharati Defence needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Bharati Defence needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bharati Defence can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bharati Defence is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Bharati Defence, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bharati Defence 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.
High dependence on Bharati Defence ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bharati Defence still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bharati Defence has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bharati Defence is just above the Water Transportation 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bharati Defence is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bharati Defence to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Bharati Defence has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Bharati Defence Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bharati Defence are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bharati Defence can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bharati Defence operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bharati Defence can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bharati Defence 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. Bharati Defence 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bharati Defence in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bharati Defence 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bharati Defence can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bharati Defence 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 Water Transportation industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Bharati Defence 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bharati Defence can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Bharati Defence 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bharati Defence 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.
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. Bharati Defence can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bharati Defence has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bharati Defence to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bharati Defence to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Bharati Defence External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bharati Defence are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bharati Defence can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence prominent markets.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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. Bharati Defence will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Bharati Defence needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Bharati Defence
– 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 Bharati Defence.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bharati Defence 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bharati Defence is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Bharati Defence business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Bharati Defence 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
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 Bharati Defence.
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 Bharati Defence in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bharati Defence may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bharati Defence Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence 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 Bharati Defence needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.