Poligrafica S Faustino (PSF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Poligrafica S Faustino (Italy)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Poligrafica S Faustino is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Poligrafica S Faustino

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Poligrafica S Faustino can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Poligrafica S Faustino, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Poligrafica S Faustino can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Poligrafica S Faustino
2. Improving business portfolio management of Poligrafica S Faustino
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Italy
4. Making a Office Supplies sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Poligrafica S Faustino

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Strengths of Poligrafica S Faustino | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Poligrafica S Faustino are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Poligrafica S Faustino in Office Supplies industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Poligrafica S Faustino in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Poligrafica S Faustino has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Poligrafica S Faustino to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Office Supplies industry. The technology infrastructure of Italy 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 Poligrafica S Faustino comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Office Supplies 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Poligrafica S Faustino is one of the most innovative firm in Office Supplies sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Poligrafica S Faustino has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Office Supplies industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Poligrafica S Faustino have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Poligrafica S Faustino 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

– Poligrafica S Faustino has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Ability to lead change in Office Supplies

– Poligrafica S Faustino is one of the leading players in the Office Supplies industry in Italy. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Office Supplies industry in Italy but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Poligrafica S Faustino in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Poligrafica S Faustino is one of the leading players in the Office Supplies industry in Italy. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Italy. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Learning organization

- Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Poligrafica S Faustino emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

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Weaknesses of Poligrafica S Faustino | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Poligrafica S Faustino are -

Skills based hiring in Office Supplies industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Poligrafica S Faustino strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Poligrafica S Faustino, in the dynamic environment of Office Supplies industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Poligrafica S Faustino has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Poligrafica S Faustino is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Poligrafica S Faustino to provide better information regarding Office Supplies products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High dependence on Poligrafica S Faustino ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Poligrafica S Faustino still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Office Supplies industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Poligrafica S Faustino has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Need for greater diversity

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Poligrafica S Faustino is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Office Supplies industry, but Poligrafica S Faustino needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Poligrafica S Faustino to focus more on services in the Office Supplies industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Poligrafica S Faustino has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Office Supplies industry over the last five years. Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

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 Poligrafica S Faustino supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Poligrafica S Faustino is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Poligrafica S Faustino vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Poligrafica S Faustino is one of the leading players in the Office Supplies industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Office Supplies industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Poligrafica S Faustino needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Office Supplies industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Poligrafica S Faustino can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Poligrafica S Faustino is planning to shift buying processes online.

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Poligrafica S Faustino Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Poligrafica S Faustino are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Office Supplies industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Poligrafica S Faustino in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Office Supplies industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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. Poligrafica S Faustino can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Developing new processes and practices

– Poligrafica S Faustino can develop new processes and procedures in Office Supplies 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Poligrafica S Faustino to increase its market reach. Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Poligrafica S Faustino is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Poligrafica S Faustino can utilize new technology in the field of Office Supplies industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Poligrafica S Faustino has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Office Supplies industry. This can help Poligrafica S Faustino to build a more holistic ecosystem for Poligrafica S Faustino products in the Office Supplies industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Manufacturing automation

– Poligrafica S Faustino can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Office Supplies 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 Office Supplies industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Poligrafica S Faustino can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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 Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

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Threats Poligrafica S Faustino External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Poligrafica S Faustino are -

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 Poligrafica S Faustino.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino prominent markets.

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 Poligrafica S Faustino in the Office Supplies sector and impact the bottomline 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 Poligrafica S Faustino business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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 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.

Increasing wage structure of Poligrafica S Faustino

– 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 Poligrafica S Faustino.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Office Supplies industry are lowering. It can presents Poligrafica S Faustino with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Office Supplies sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Office Supplies industry.

Environmental challenges

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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. Poligrafica S Faustino can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Office Supplies industry.

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. Poligrafica S Faustino 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Office Supplies industry regulations.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Office Supplies industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Poligrafica S Faustino can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Poligrafica S Faustino Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino 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 Poligrafica S Faustino needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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