SWECO B (0H0G) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SWECO B (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SWECO B is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of SWECO B

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SWECO B can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SWECO B, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SWECO B 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 SWECO B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SWECO B
2. Improving business portfolio management of SWECO B
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of SWECO B

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Strengths of SWECO B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of SWECO B are -

Diverse revenue streams

– SWECO B is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided SWECO B 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– SWECO B is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry

– SWECO B has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled SWECO B to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped SWECO B to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the SWECO B 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry

– SWECO B is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that SWECO B 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

High brand equity

– SWECO B has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled SWECO B to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– SWECO B has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SWECO B staying ahead in the Personal Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Organizational Resilience of SWECO B

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing SWECO B does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to lead change in Personal Services

– SWECO B is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled SWECO B in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Innovation driven organization

– SWECO B is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.

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Weaknesses of SWECO B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of SWECO B are -

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of SWECO B, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal Services 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though SWECO B has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. SWECO B should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As SWECO B is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, SWECO B has high operating costs in the Personal Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract SWECO B lucrative customers.

Ability to respond to the competition

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

High dependence on SWECO B ‘s star products

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

Need for greater diversity

– SWECO B 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of SWECO B products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, SWECO B needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Skills based hiring in Personal Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SWECO B 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 SWECO B needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at SWECO B can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as SWECO B is planning to shift buying processes online.

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

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SWECO B Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of SWECO B are -

Manufacturing automation

– SWECO B can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for SWECO B in the Personal Services industry. Now SWECO B can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at SWECO B 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 Personal Services industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for SWECO B in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– SWECO B has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled SWECO B to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help SWECO B to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Creating value in data economy

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

Loyalty marketing

– SWECO B 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, SWECO B is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SWECO B can utilize new technology in the field of Personal Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for SWECO B 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help SWECO B to increase its market reach. SWECO B 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. SWECO B can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. SWECO B 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. SWECO B 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.

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Threats SWECO B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of SWECO B are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, SWECO B 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 SWECO B prominent markets.

Consumer confidence and its impact on SWECO B 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, SWECO B may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.

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 SWECO B business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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 SWECO B in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Environmental challenges

– SWECO B 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. SWECO B can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– SWECO B has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, SWECO B needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that SWECO B is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. SWECO B needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– SWECO B 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 Personal Services industry.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of SWECO B Template, Example

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

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