Avance Gas Holding Ltd (0QTX) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Avance Gas Holding Ltd (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Avance Gas Holding Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avance Gas Holding Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Avance Gas Holding Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Avance Gas Holding Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Avance Gas Holding Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Avance Gas Holding Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Avance Gas Holding Ltd
Strengths of Avance Gas Holding Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Avance Gas Holding Ltd are -
Training and development
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Avance Gas Holding Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Avance Gas Holding Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Avance Gas Holding Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Avance Gas Holding Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Avance Gas Holding Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Avance Gas Holding Ltd staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Avance Gas Holding Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Avance Gas Holding Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Avance Gas Holding Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Avance Gas Holding Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Avance Gas Holding Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Avance Gas Holding Ltd are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Avance Gas Holding Ltd is just above the Water Transportation 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Avance Gas Holding Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Avance Gas Holding Ltd has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Avance Gas Holding Ltd lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Avance Gas Holding Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Avance Gas Holding Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Avance Gas Holding Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Avance Gas Holding Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Avance Gas Holding Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Avance Gas Holding Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Avance Gas Holding Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Avance Gas Holding Ltd to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Avance Gas Holding Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Avance Gas Holding Ltd to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Avance Gas Holding Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Avance Gas Holding Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Avance Gas Holding Ltd are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Avance Gas Holding Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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 Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Avance Gas Holding Ltd in the Water Transportation industry. Now Avance Gas Holding Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Avance Gas Holding Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Avance Gas Holding Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Avance Gas Holding Ltd to increase its market reach. Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Avance Gas Holding Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Avance Gas Holding Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Avance Gas Holding Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Avance Gas Holding Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Avance Gas Holding Ltd are -
Regulatory challenges
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Avance Gas Holding Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Avance Gas Holding Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.
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. Avance Gas Holding Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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. Avance Gas Holding Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Avance Gas Holding Ltd is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry.
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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avance Gas Holding Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd 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 Avance Gas Holding Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
