SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xenia Venture (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xenia Venture is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xenia Venture can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xenia Venture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xenia Venture
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xenia Venture
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xenia Venture
Strengths of Xenia Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xenia Venture are -
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Xenia Venture is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Xenia Venture in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Xenia Venture is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Xenia Venture in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Xenia Venture has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Xenia Venture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Xenia Venture 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. Financial 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Xenia Venture comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Xenia Venture has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Xenia Venture have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xenia Venture emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Xenia Venture is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
High brand equity
– Xenia Venture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Xenia Venture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Xenia Venture has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Xenia Venture to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Xenia Venture to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Xenia Venture is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Xenia Venture 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.
Training and development
– Xenia Venture has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Weaknesses of Xenia Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xenia Venture are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Xenia Venture has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Xenia Venture needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Xenia Venture can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xenia Venture is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Xenia Venture is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Xenia Venture needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Xenia Venture to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Xenia Venture 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Xenia Venture has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Xenia Venture lucrative customers.
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 Xenia Venture supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xenia Venture is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xenia Venture vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Xenia Venture ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Xenia Venture still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Xenia Venture 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, Xenia Venture is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Xenia Venture to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Xenia Venture products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Xenia Venture needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Xenia Venture 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 Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xenia Venture 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.
Xenia Venture Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Xenia Venture are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Xenia Venture in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Xenia Venture can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xenia Venture has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Xenia Venture to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xenia Venture to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Xenia Venture 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. Xenia Venture 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Xenia Venture 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Xenia Venture has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Xenia Venture to build a more holistic ecosystem for Xenia Venture products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Xenia Venture 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Xenia Venture can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Xenia Venture 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Xenia Venture is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Xenia Venture can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Xenia Venture can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture 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.
Threats Xenia Venture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Xenia Venture are -
Regulatory challenges
– Xenia Venture 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. Financial Services industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Xenia Venture is facing in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Xenia Venture 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Xenia Venture has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Xenia Venture needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xenia Venture can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Xenia Venture
– 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 Xenia Venture.
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 Xenia Venture.
Environmental challenges
– Xenia Venture 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. Xenia Venture can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial 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. Xenia Venture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xenia Venture 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. Financial Services industry.
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 Xenia Venture business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xenia Venture Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture 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 Xenia Venture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.