Maytronics (MTRN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maytronics (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maytronics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maytronics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maytronics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maytronics 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 Maytronics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maytronics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maytronics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maytronics
Strengths of Maytronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maytronics are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Maytronics 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Appliance & Tool industry
– Maytronics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maytronics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maytronics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Appliance & Tool industry
– Maytronics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Maytronics has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Appliance & Tool industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maytronics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Maytronics is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry in Israel. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Israel. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Maytronics in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Maytronics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Maytronics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Maytronics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Maytronics 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.
High brand equity
– Maytronics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Maytronics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Maytronics 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 Maytronics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maytronics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Maytronics 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 Appliance & Tool industry. The technology infrastructure of Israel 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Maytronics is one of the most innovative firm in Appliance & Tool sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Maytronics comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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 Maytronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maytronics are -
Employees’ less understanding of Maytronics strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maytronics 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, Maytronics needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Maytronics has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Appliance & Tool industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Maytronics, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Appliance & Tool industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Maytronics 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
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 Maytronics supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Maytronics is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Maytronics vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Maytronics has high operating costs in the Appliance & Tool industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Maytronics lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Maytronics has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring in Appliance & Tool industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maytronics 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Maytronics is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Appliance & Tool industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Maytronics products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Maytronics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Maytronics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maytronics are -
Loyalty marketing
– Maytronics 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maytronics to increase its market reach. Maytronics 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Maytronics 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Maytronics is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maytronics can utilize new technology in the field of Appliance & Tool industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maytronics 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 Maytronics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Maytronics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Maytronics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Maytronics products in the Appliance & Tool industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Maytronics 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
– Maytronics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Maytronics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Appliance & Tool sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maytronics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maytronics 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, Maytronics 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 Maytronics to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Maytronics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maytronics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maytronics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Appliance & Tool sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Appliance & Tool industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maytronics in the Appliance & Tool industry. Now Maytronics can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Maytronics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maytronics are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maytronics is facing in Appliance & Tool sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Maytronics 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maytronics in Appliance & Tool industry. The Appliance & Tool 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Maytronics 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
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. Maytronics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Appliance & Tool industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maytronics can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Maytronics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Appliance & Tool industry are lowering. It can presents Maytronics with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Appliance & Tool sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Maytronics 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Maytronics 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 Appliance & Tool industry regulations.
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.
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 Maytronics in the Appliance & Tool sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Maytronics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Appliance & Tool industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maytronics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Appliance & Tool 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 Maytronics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maytronics 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 Maytronics 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 Maytronics 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 Maytronics 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 Maytronics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
