SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pulz Electronics (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pulz Electronics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Pulz Electronics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pulz Electronics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Pulz Electronics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pulz Electronics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Audio & Video Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Pulz Electronics
Strengths of Pulz Electronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pulz Electronics are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pulz Electronics 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Pulz Electronics has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Audio & Video Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Pulz Electronics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Pulz Electronics is present in almost all the verticals within the Audio & Video Equipment industry. This has provided Pulz Electronics 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.
Analytics focus
– Pulz Electronics 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 Audio & Video Equipment 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.
Training and development
– Pulz Electronics has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pulz Electronics is one of the leading players in the Audio & Video Equipment 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Audio & Video Equipment industry
– Pulz Electronics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pulz Electronics in Audio & Video Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pulz Electronics in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Pulz Electronics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pulz Electronics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pulz Electronics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Pulz Electronics staying ahead in the Audio & Video Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Audio & Video Equipment industry
– Pulz Electronics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pulz Electronics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pulz Electronics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Pulz Electronics comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Audio & Video Equipment 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.
Weaknesses of Pulz Electronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pulz Electronics are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pulz Electronics has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Pulz Electronics 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 Audio & Video Equipment industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Pulz Electronics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Audio & Video Equipment industry, but Pulz Electronics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pulz Electronics to focus more on services in the Audio & Video Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Pulz Electronics products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pulz Electronics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Audio & Video Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pulz Electronics 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.
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 Pulz Electronics supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Pulz Electronics is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Pulz Electronics vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Pulz Electronics ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Pulz Electronics still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Audio & Video Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Pulz Electronics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Pulz Electronics is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Pulz Electronics to provide better information regarding Audio & Video Equipment products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Pulz Electronics is one of the leading players in the Audio & Video Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Audio & Video Equipment industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Pulz Electronics has high operating costs in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Pulz Electronics lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Audio & Video Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Pulz Electronics is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Audio & Video Equipment industry.
Pulz Electronics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Pulz Electronics are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Audio & Video Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Pulz Electronics in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. Now Pulz Electronics can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Pulz Electronics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Audio & Video Equipment 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pulz Electronics to increase its market reach. Pulz Electronics 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pulz Electronics 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Pulz Electronics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Audio & Video Equipment industry. This can help Pulz Electronics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Pulz Electronics products in the Audio & Video Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pulz Electronics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Audio & Video Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Pulz Electronics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Audio & Video Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Pulz Electronics 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. Pulz Electronics 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pulz Electronics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pulz Electronics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Audio & Video Equipment sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pulz Electronics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Audio & Video Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Pulz Electronics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pulz Electronics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Pulz Electronics 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Pulz Electronics can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Audio & Video Equipment 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, Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Pulz Electronics are -
Regulatory challenges
– Pulz Electronics 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 Audio & Video Equipment industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Pulz Electronics
– 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 Pulz Electronics.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pulz Electronics 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.
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 Pulz Electronics.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics prominent markets.
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. Pulz Electronics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Audio & Video Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Pulz Electronics 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 Audio & Video Equipment industry and other sectors.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pulz Electronics is facing in Audio & Video Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Pulz Electronics may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Audio & Video Equipment sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pulz Electronics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Audio & Video Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pulz Electronics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Audio & Video Equipment 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.
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 Pulz Electronics in the Audio & Video Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pulz Electronics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics 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 Pulz Electronics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.