Safe-T Group W2 (SAFE_t2) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Safe-T Group W2 (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Safe-T Group W2 is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Safe-T Group W2 can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Safe-T Group W2, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Safe-T Group W2
2. Improving business portfolio management of Safe-T Group W2
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Safe-T Group W2
Strengths of Safe-T Group W2 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Safe-T Group W2 are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Safe-T Group W2 has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Safe-T Group W2 have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Safe-T Group W2 has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Safe-T Group W2 to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Safe-T Group W2 to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Safe-T Group W2 has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Safe-T Group W2 to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Safe-T Group W2 has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Safe-T Group W2 staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Safe-T Group W2 digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Safe-T Group W2 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Safe-T Group W2 comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Safe-T Group W2 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.
Training and development
– Safe-T Group W2 has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Safe-T Group W2 is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Safe-T Group W2 in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Safe-T Group W2 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 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Safe-T Group W2 has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Safe-T Group W2 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.
Weaknesses of Safe-T Group W2 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Safe-T Group W2 are -
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Safe-T Group W2 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.
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 Safe-T Group W2 supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Safe-T Group W2 is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Safe-T Group W2 vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Safe-T Group W2 has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Safe-T Group W2 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Safe-T Group W2 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Safe-T Group W2 is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Safe-T Group W2 to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Safe-T Group W2 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Safe-T Group W2 products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Safe-T Group W2 needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, Safe-T Group W2 needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Safe-T Group W2 has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Safe-T Group W2 should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Safe-T Group W2 is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Safe-T Group W2, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Safe-T Group W2 Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Safe-T Group W2 are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 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. Safe-T Group W2 can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Safe-T Group W2 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Safe-T Group W2 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. Safe-T Group W2 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Safe-T Group W2 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.
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 Safe-T Group W2 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Safe-T Group W2 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Safe-T Group W2 can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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
– Safe-T Group W2 has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Safe-T Group W2 to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Safe-T Group W2 to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Safe-T Group W2 can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Safe-T Group W2 is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Safe-T Group W2 can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, Safe-T Group W2 can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Safe-T Group W2 operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Safe-T Group W2 in the industry. Now Safe-T Group W2 can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Safe-T Group W2 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Safe-T Group W2 are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Safe-T Group W2 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Safe-T Group W2 business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Safe-T Group W2 is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Safe-T Group W2 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 industry regulations.
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 Safe-T Group W2 in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Safe-T Group W2 can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Safe-T Group W2 has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Safe-T Group W2 needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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. Safe-T Group W2 needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Safe-T Group W2 with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Safe-T Group W2.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Safe-T Group W2 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 industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Safe-T Group W2 Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 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 Safe-T Group W2 needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.