WhiteHawk (WHK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for WhiteHawk (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , WhiteHawk is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that WhiteHawk can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the WhiteHawk, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of WhiteHawk
2. Improving business portfolio management of WhiteHawk
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of WhiteHawk
Strengths of WhiteHawk | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of WhiteHawk are -
Learning organization
- WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at WhiteHawk emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– WhiteHawk has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of WhiteHawk have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– WhiteHawk is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled WhiteHawk in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– WhiteHawk has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of WhiteHawk in the Services sector have low bargaining power. WhiteHawk has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps WhiteHawk to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– WhiteHawk has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled WhiteHawk to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– WhiteHawk is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– WhiteHawk has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – WhiteHawk staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of WhiteHawk in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– WhiteHawk is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided WhiteHawk 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.
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For WhiteHawk digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. WhiteHawk 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– WhiteHawk has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled WhiteHawk to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped WhiteHawk to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of WhiteHawk | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of WhiteHawk are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at WhiteHawk, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. WhiteHawk has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As WhiteHawk is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, WhiteHawk 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 Business Services industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, WhiteHawk is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help WhiteHawk to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, WhiteHawk has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of WhiteHawk still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though WhiteHawk has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, WhiteHawk 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.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at WhiteHawk 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that WhiteHawk needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at WhiteHawk can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as WhiteHawk is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of WhiteHawk products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, WhiteHawk needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though WhiteHawk has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. WhiteHawk should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
WhiteHawk Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of WhiteHawk are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for WhiteHawk in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for WhiteHawk in the Business Services industry. Now WhiteHawk can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, WhiteHawk 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.
Loyalty marketing
– WhiteHawk 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– WhiteHawk 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. WhiteHawk 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. WhiteHawk 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, WhiteHawk is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. WhiteHawk can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services 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 WhiteHawk has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help WhiteHawk to build a more holistic ecosystem for WhiteHawk products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. WhiteHawk can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– WhiteHawk can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– WhiteHawk can develop new processes and procedures in Business 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for WhiteHawk 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at WhiteHawk 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 Business Services industry.
Threats WhiteHawk External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk.
Regulatory challenges
– WhiteHawk 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 Business Services industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, WhiteHawk may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. WhiteHawk can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– WhiteHawk 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 Business Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on WhiteHawk 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
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 WhiteHawk in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of WhiteHawk
– 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 WhiteHawk.
Environmental challenges
– WhiteHawk 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. WhiteHawk can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for WhiteHawk in Business Services industry. The Business Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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 WhiteHawk business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. WhiteHawk needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of WhiteHawk Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk 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 WhiteHawk needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.