SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hellenic Telec (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hellenic Telec is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hellenic Telec can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hellenic Telec, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hellenic Telec
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hellenic Telec
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Communications Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hellenic Telec
Strengths of Hellenic Telec | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hellenic Telec are -
Innovation driven organization
– Hellenic Telec is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Services sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hellenic Telec 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hellenic Telec is one of the leading players in the Communications 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hellenic Telec has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hellenic Telec staying ahead in the Communications Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Services industry
– Hellenic Telec is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hellenic Telec is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Services industry. This has provided Hellenic Telec 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.
Organizational Resilience of Hellenic Telec
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hellenic Telec does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Services industry
– Hellenic Telec has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hellenic Telec to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hellenic Telec to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Hellenic Telec 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.
Learning organization
- Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hellenic Telec emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hellenic Telec in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hellenic Telec in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Hellenic Telec has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hellenic Telec to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Hellenic Telec | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hellenic Telec are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hellenic Telec, in the dynamic environment of Communications Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hellenic Telec has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Hellenic Telec ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hellenic Telec still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hellenic Telec has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hellenic Telec has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Services industry over the last five years. Hellenic Telec 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hellenic Telec has high operating costs in the Communications Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hellenic Telec lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hellenic Telec is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Services industry, but Hellenic Telec needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hellenic Telec to focus more on services in the Communications Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hellenic Telec needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hellenic Telec can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hellenic Telec is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Hellenic Telec 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Hellenic Telec, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Hellenic Telec needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hellenic Telec has some of the most successful models in the Communications Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hellenic Telec should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Hellenic Telec 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 Communications Services industry.
Hellenic Telec Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hellenic Telec are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Hellenic Telec can develop new processes and procedures in Communications 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hellenic Telec 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. Hellenic Telec 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hellenic Telec 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hellenic Telec has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Services industry. This can help Hellenic Telec to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hellenic Telec products in the Communications Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hellenic Telec 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hellenic Telec in the Communications Services industry. Now Hellenic Telec can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Hellenic Telec 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hellenic Telec has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hellenic Telec to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hellenic Telec to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Hellenic Telec can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications 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.
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. Hellenic Telec can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Hellenic Telec can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Services 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hellenic Telec 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 Communications Services industry.
Threats Hellenic Telec External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hellenic Telec are -
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hellenic Telec is facing in Communications Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Hellenic Telec in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hellenic Telec 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.
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. Hellenic Telec 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Services industry are lowering. It can presents Hellenic Telec with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hellenic Telec has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hellenic Telec needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications 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.
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 Hellenic Telec.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hellenic Telec in Communications Services industry. The Communications 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hellenic Telec may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hellenic Telec 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 Communications Services industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Hellenic Telec
– 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 Hellenic Telec.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hellenic Telec Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec 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 Hellenic Telec needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.