Seri Industrial (SERK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electronic Instr. & Controls
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Seri Industrial (Italy)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Seri Industrial is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Seri Industrial can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Seri Industrial, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Seri Industrial
2. Improving business portfolio management of Seri Industrial
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Italy
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Seri Industrial
Strengths of Seri Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Seri Industrial are -
High brand equity
– Seri Industrial has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Seri Industrial to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Seri Industrial has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Seri Industrial have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Seri Industrial
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Seri Industrial does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Seri Industrial has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Seri Industrial staying ahead in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Seri Industrial emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Seri Industrial 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.
Training and development
– Seri Industrial has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Seri Industrial comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Seri Industrial is present in almost all the verticals within the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This has provided Seri Industrial 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Seri Industrial has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Seri Industrial to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Seri Industrial to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Seri Industrial in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Seri Industrial is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Seri Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Seri Industrial are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Seri Industrial, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Skills based hiring in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Seri Industrial 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Seri Industrial is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Seri Industrial to provide better information regarding Electronic Instr. & Controls products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Seri Industrial 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Seri Industrial is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Seri Industrial has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Seri Industrial should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Seri Industrial has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Seri Industrial supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Seri Industrial is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Seri Industrial vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, Seri Industrial 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Italy, Seri Industrial 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Seri Industrial is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but Seri Industrial needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Seri Industrial to focus more on services in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Seri Industrial Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Seri Industrial are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Seri Industrial 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Seri Industrial 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls 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 Seri Industrial 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Seri Industrial can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Seri Industrial 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
– Seri Industrial 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Seri Industrial in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Seri Industrial to increase its market reach. Seri Industrial 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Seri Industrial 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Seri Industrial has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Seri Industrial to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Seri Industrial to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Seri Industrial 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.
Threats Seri Industrial External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Seri Industrial are -
Increasing wage structure of Seri Industrial
– 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 Seri Industrial.
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. Seri Industrial needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Seri Industrial 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.
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.
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 Seri Industrial business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Seri Industrial 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electronic Instr. & Controls industry are lowering. It can presents Seri Industrial with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
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 Seri Industrial in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Seri Industrial 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Seri Industrial can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Seri Industrial may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Seri Industrial Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial 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 Seri Industrial needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
