SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zebra Nusantara (Indonesia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zebra Nusantara is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zebra Nusantara can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zebra Nusantara, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zebra Nusantara
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zebra Nusantara
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Indonesia
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zebra Nusantara
Strengths of Zebra Nusantara | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zebra Nusantara are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zebra Nusantara has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zebra Nusantara staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zebra Nusantara emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry
– Zebra Nusantara is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Zebra Nusantara 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 Misc. Transportation industry. The technology infrastructure of Indonesia 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
– Zebra Nusantara has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
High brand equity
– Zebra Nusantara has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zebra Nusantara to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Zebra Nusantara
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zebra Nusantara does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zebra Nusantara digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zebra Nusantara 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zebra Nusantara is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Zebra Nusantara 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zebra Nusantara 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
– Zebra Nusantara has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zebra Nusantara have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Zebra Nusantara comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Transportation 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 Zebra Nusantara | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zebra Nusantara are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Indonesia, Zebra Nusantara needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Zebra Nusantara 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Zebra Nusantara 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zebra Nusantara 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zebra Nusantara is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zebra Nusantara to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zebra Nusantara is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Zebra Nusantara strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Zebra Nusantara 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zebra Nusantara needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Zebra Nusantara can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zebra Nusantara is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zebra Nusantara has high operating costs in the Misc. Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zebra Nusantara lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zebra Nusantara has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Zebra Nusantara should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zebra Nusantara, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zebra Nusantara has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Zebra Nusantara Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zebra Nusantara are -
Manufacturing automation
– Zebra Nusantara can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zebra Nusantara has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Zebra Nusantara to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zebra Nusantara products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zebra Nusantara can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Zebra Nusantara can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zebra Nusantara can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zebra Nusantara in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. 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, Zebra Nusantara 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zebra Nusantara to increase its market reach. Zebra Nusantara 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zebra Nusantara 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. Zebra Nusantara 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zebra Nusantara 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
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 Zebra Nusantara to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Developing new processes and practices
– Zebra Nusantara can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Zebra Nusantara External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zebra Nusantara are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara prominent markets.
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. Zebra Nusantara 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zebra Nusantara may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zebra Nusantara 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zebra Nusantara 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Zebra Nusantara with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zebra Nusantara in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Increasing wage structure of Zebra Nusantara
– 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 Zebra Nusantara.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zebra Nusantara is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Zebra Nusantara 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. Zebra Nusantara can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Zebra Nusantara 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zebra Nusantara has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zebra Nusantara needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zebra Nusantara Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara 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 Zebra Nusantara needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.