SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Minrav Projects (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Minrav Projects is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, 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 Minrav Projects can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Minrav Projects, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Minrav Projects
2. Improving business portfolio management of Minrav Projects
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Minrav Projects
Strengths of Minrav Projects | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Minrav Projects are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Minrav Projects has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Minrav Projects to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Minrav Projects to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Minrav Projects 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Minrav Projects has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Minrav Projects 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.
Learning organization
- Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Minrav Projects emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Minrav Projects in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Minrav Projects has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Minrav Projects to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Minrav Projects is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Minrav Projects 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Minrav Projects is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Minrav Projects has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Analytics focus
– Minrav Projects 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 Construction Services 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Minrav Projects is one of the leading players in the Construction Services 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.
Weaknesses of Minrav Projects | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Minrav Projects are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Minrav Projects is just above the Construction Services 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Minrav Projects 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Minrav Projects has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Minrav Projects should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Minrav Projects has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Minrav Projects 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.
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 Minrav Projects supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Minrav Projects is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Minrav Projects vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Minrav Projects 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 Construction Services industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Minrav Projects 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Minrav Projects strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Minrav Projects 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.
High dependence on Minrav Projects ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Minrav Projects still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Minrav Projects has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Minrav Projects needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Minrav Projects can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Minrav Projects is planning to shift buying processes online.
Minrav Projects Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Minrav Projects are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Minrav Projects in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Minrav Projects has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Minrav Projects to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Minrav Projects to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Minrav Projects in the Construction Services industry. Now Minrav Projects can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Minrav Projects can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Minrav Projects can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects to increase its market reach. Minrav Projects 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 Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Minrav Projects 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. Minrav Projects 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Minrav Projects 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Minrav Projects 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 Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Minrav Projects can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Minrav Projects can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services 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 Minrav Projects External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Minrav Projects are -
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 Minrav Projects business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Minrav Projects can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Minrav Projects with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Minrav Projects 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.
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 Minrav Projects in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Minrav Projects has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Minrav Projects needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Minrav Projects in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.
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 Minrav Projects.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Minrav Projects 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 Construction Services 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. Minrav Projects needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Minrav Projects may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Minrav Projects is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Minrav Projects Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects 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 Minrav Projects needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.