Inwido (0QXM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Inwido (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Inwido is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Inwido can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Inwido, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Inwido 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 Inwido can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Inwido
2. Improving business portfolio management of Inwido
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Inwido
Strengths of Inwido | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Inwido are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Inwido comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Inwido in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Inwido has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Inwido to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Inwido is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Inwido is one of the most innovative firm in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Inwido has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Inwido 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.
High brand equity
– Inwido has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Inwido to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Inwido has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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
- Inwido 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 Inwido is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Inwido emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Inwido has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Inwido staying ahead in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Inwido 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Inwido is present in almost all the verticals within the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This has provided Inwido 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 lead change in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– Inwido is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Inwido in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Inwido | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Inwido are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Inwido needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Inwido can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Inwido is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Inwido has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Inwido strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Inwido 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.
Skills based hiring in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Inwido 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Inwido, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Inwido has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Inwido 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Inwido is just above the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Inwido needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Inwido, in the dynamic environment of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Inwido has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Inwido is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but Inwido needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Inwido to focus more on services in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Inwido Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Inwido are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Inwido 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Inwido can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Inwido 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Inwido in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Inwido 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. Inwido 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Inwido has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can help Inwido to build a more holistic ecosystem for Inwido products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Inwido can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Inwido can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Inwido operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Inwido is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Inwido can utilize new technology in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Inwido can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Inwido to increase its market reach. Inwido 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Inwido 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
– Inwido 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.
Threats Inwido External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Inwido are -
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 Inwido in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Inwido 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.
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 Inwido business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Inwido.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Inwido is facing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Inwido 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
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
– Inwido 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Inwido 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 Inwido prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Inwido 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. Inwido can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Inwido has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Inwido needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
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. Inwido needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Inwido Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Inwido 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 Inwido 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 Inwido 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 Inwido 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 Inwido needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.