Electronic City Ind (ECII) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Electronic City Ind (Indonesia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Electronic City Ind is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Electronic City Ind

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Electronic City Ind can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Electronic City Ind, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Electronic City Ind
2. Improving business portfolio management of Electronic City Ind
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Indonesia
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Electronic City Ind

---

Strengths of Electronic City Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Electronic City Ind are -

Innovation driven organization

– Electronic City Ind is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.

Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Specialty) industry

– Electronic City Ind is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Organizational Resilience of Electronic City Ind

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Electronic City Ind does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Electronic City Ind 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Electronic City Ind is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Indonesia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Indonesia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Learning organization

- Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Electronic City Ind emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Electronic City Ind has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Electronic City Ind 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.

Digital Transformation in Retail (Specialty) industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Electronic City Ind digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Electronic City Ind 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Electronic City Ind has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Electronic City Ind staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Electronic City Ind 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Electronic City Ind comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Electronic City Ind in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Electronic City Ind has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Electronic City Ind to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

---

---

Weaknesses of Electronic City Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Electronic City Ind are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Electronic City Ind 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Indonesia, Electronic City Ind needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Electronic City Ind 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Electronic City Ind is just above the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Electronic City Ind products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Electronic City Ind needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Electronic City Ind is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Electronic City Ind to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Electronic City Ind is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Electronic City Ind, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Specialty) 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.

High dependence on Electronic City Ind ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Electronic City Ind still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Electronic City Ind has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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 Electronic City Ind supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Electronic City Ind is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Electronic City Ind vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Electronic City Ind has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Electronic City Ind 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.

---

Electronic City Ind Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Electronic City Ind are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Electronic City Ind has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Electronic City Ind to build a more holistic ecosystem for Electronic City Ind products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Electronic City Ind can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Electronic City Ind can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Electronic City Ind to increase its market reach. Electronic City Ind 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Electronic City Ind 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Electronic City Ind can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Electronic City Ind 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, Electronic City Ind can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Electronic City Ind operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Electronic City Ind has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Electronic City Ind to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Electronic City Ind to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Specialty) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Electronic City Ind can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

---

Threats Electronic City Ind External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Electronic City Ind are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Electronic City Ind is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Electronic City Ind with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Electronic City Ind may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Specialty) sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Electronic City Ind 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 Retail (Specialty) 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 Electronic City Ind.

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.

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 Electronic City Ind business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind prominent markets.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Electronic City Ind can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Electronic City Ind 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 Retail (Specialty) industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Electronic City Ind 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. Electronic City Ind can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry.

Increasing wage structure of Electronic City Ind

– 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 Electronic City Ind.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Electronic City Ind 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Electronic City Ind Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind 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 Electronic City Ind needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---