SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for bpost NV (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , bpost NV 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, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that bpost NV can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the bpost NV, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which bpost NV 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 bpost NV can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of bpost NV
2. Improving business portfolio management of bpost NV
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of bpost NV
Strengths of bpost NV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of bpost NV are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of bpost NV in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that bpost NV 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
– bpost NV has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Trucking industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of bpost NV have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of bpost NV
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing bpost NV does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of bpost NV in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. bpost NV has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps bpost NV to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– bpost NV has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– bpost NV is one of the leading players in the Trucking 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.
Innovation driven organization
– bpost NV is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.
High brand equity
– bpost NV has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled bpost NV to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– bpost NV is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the bpost NV 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.
Learning organization
- bpost NV 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 bpost NV is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at bpost NV emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of bpost NV | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of bpost NV are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, bpost NV 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of bpost NV is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but bpost NV needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help bpost NV to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of bpost NV strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of bpost NV 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.
Need for greater diversity
– bpost NV 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.
High dependence on bpost NV ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of bpost NV still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Trucking industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though bpost NV has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Trucking industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, bpost NV 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 Trucking industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of bpost NV, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Trucking 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.
Skills based hiring in Trucking industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at bpost NV 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of bpost NV products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, bpost NV needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As bpost NV is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Trucking industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of bpost NV is just above the Trucking 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.
bpost NV Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of bpost NV are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of bpost NV has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Trucking industry. This can help bpost NV to build a more holistic ecosystem for bpost NV products in the Trucking industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, bpost NV is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. bpost NV can utilize new technology in the field of Trucking industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– bpost NV can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Trucking 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, bpost NV can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that bpost NV operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, bpost NV 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 bpost NV to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help bpost NV to increase its market reach. bpost NV 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.
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. bpost NV can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– bpost NV can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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.
Loyalty marketing
– bpost NV 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at bpost NV 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 Trucking industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. bpost NV 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. bpost NV 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– bpost NV 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Trucking industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for bpost NV in the Trucking industry. Now bpost NV can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats bpost NV External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of bpost NV are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Trucking industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. bpost NV can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 bpost NV.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– bpost NV 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 Trucking industry regulations.
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 bpost NV in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, bpost NV 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 bpost NV prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– bpost NV 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 Trucking industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that bpost NV is facing in Trucking 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. bpost NV needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– bpost NV has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, bpost NV needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for bpost NV in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.
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. bpost NV 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.
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 bpost NV Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at bpost NV 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 bpost NV 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 bpost NV 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 bpost NV 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 bpost NV needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.