SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Edinburgh Dragon (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Edinburgh Dragon is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Edinburgh Dragon can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Edinburgh Dragon, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Edinburgh Dragon
2. Improving business portfolio management of Edinburgh Dragon
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Edinburgh Dragon
Strengths of Edinburgh Dragon | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Edinburgh Dragon are -
Innovation driven organization
– Edinburgh Dragon is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Edinburgh Dragon has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Edinburgh Dragon to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Edinburgh Dragon to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Edinburgh Dragon is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Edinburgh Dragon comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Edinburgh Dragon 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.
High brand equity
– Edinburgh Dragon has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Edinburgh Dragon to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Edinburgh Dragon emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Analytics focus
– Edinburgh Dragon is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Organizational Resilience of Edinburgh Dragon
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Edinburgh Dragon does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Edinburgh Dragon has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Edinburgh Dragon have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Edinburgh Dragon is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Edinburgh Dragon in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Edinburgh Dragon | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Edinburgh Dragon are -
Need for greater diversity
– Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Edinburgh Dragon is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Edinburgh Dragon needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Edinburgh Dragon can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Edinburgh Dragon is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Edinburgh Dragon needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Edinburgh Dragon strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Edinburgh Dragon 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 Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Edinburgh Dragon has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Edinburgh Dragon 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 dependence on Edinburgh Dragon ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Edinburgh Dragon still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Edinburgh Dragon has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Edinburgh Dragon has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Edinburgh Dragon 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Edinburgh Dragon is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Edinburgh Dragon needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Edinburgh Dragon to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Edinburgh Dragon Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Edinburgh Dragon are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Edinburgh Dragon in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Edinburgh Dragon can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Edinburgh Dragon can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Edinburgh Dragon operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
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. Edinburgh Dragon can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Edinburgh Dragon to build a more holistic ecosystem for Edinburgh Dragon products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Edinburgh Dragon 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. Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Edinburgh Dragon is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Edinburgh Dragon can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Edinburgh Dragon External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Edinburgh Dragon are -
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. Edinburgh Dragon 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Edinburgh Dragon 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Edinburgh Dragon 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Edinburgh Dragon 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Edinburgh Dragon can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Edinburgh Dragon may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Edinburgh Dragon in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Edinburgh Dragon 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
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 Edinburgh Dragon business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Edinburgh Dragon with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Edinburgh Dragon has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Edinburgh Dragon needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Edinburgh Dragon Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon 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 Edinburgh Dragon needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.