U Blox Holding AG (0QNI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Communications Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for U Blox Holding AG (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , U Blox Holding AG is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of U Blox Holding AG
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that U Blox Holding AG can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the U Blox Holding AG, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of U Blox Holding AG
2. Improving business portfolio management of U Blox Holding AG
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of U Blox Holding AG
Strengths of U Blox Holding AG | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of U Blox Holding AG are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that U Blox Holding AG 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.
Organizational Resilience of U Blox Holding AG
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing U Blox Holding AG 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 Equipment industry
– U Blox Holding AG has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled U Blox Holding AG to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped U Blox Holding AG to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Communications Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For U Blox Holding AG digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. U Blox Holding AG 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– U Blox Holding AG is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– U Blox Holding AG has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of U Blox Holding AG have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– U Blox Holding AG has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. U Blox Holding AG 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of U Blox Holding AG in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. U Blox Holding AG has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps U Blox Holding AG to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– U Blox Holding AG is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided U Blox Holding AG 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of U Blox Holding AG in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– U Blox Holding AG has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – U Blox Holding AG staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– U Blox Holding AG 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 Communications Equipment 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.
Weaknesses of U Blox Holding AG | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of U Blox Holding AG are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that U Blox Holding AG needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at U Blox Holding AG can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as U Blox Holding AG is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, U Blox Holding AG has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract U Blox Holding AG lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of U Blox Holding AG is just above the Communications Equipment 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As U Blox Holding AG is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry in last five years.
High dependence on U Blox Holding AG ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of U Blox Holding AG still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though U Blox Holding AG has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of U Blox Holding AG products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, U Blox Holding AG needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– U Blox Holding AG 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though U Blox Holding AG has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. U Blox Holding AG should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, U Blox Holding AG 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 Equipment industry over the last five years. U Blox Holding AG 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
U Blox Holding AG has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, U Blox Holding AG 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 Equipment industry.
U Blox Holding AG Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of U Blox Holding AG are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, U Blox Holding AG can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that U Blox Holding AG operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help U Blox Holding AG to increase its market reach. U Blox Holding AG 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at U Blox Holding AG 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 Equipment industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– U Blox Holding AG 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. U Blox Holding AG 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. U Blox Holding AG 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.
Manufacturing automation
– U Blox Holding AG can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Equipment 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, U Blox Holding AG 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for U Blox Holding AG 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, U Blox Holding AG is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. U Blox Holding AG can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– U Blox Holding AG can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Equipment 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects U Blox Holding AG can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for U Blox Holding AG in the Communications Equipment industry. Now U Blox Holding AG can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats U Blox Holding AG External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of U Blox Holding AG are -
Environmental challenges
– U Blox Holding AG 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. U Blox Holding AG can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment 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 U Blox Holding AG in the Communications Equipment 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. U Blox Holding AG 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– U Blox Holding AG has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, U Blox Holding AG needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. U Blox Holding AG can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– U Blox Holding AG 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Regulatory challenges
– U Blox Holding AG 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on U Blox Holding AG 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 Equipment 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. U Blox Holding AG needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for U Blox Holding AG in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG prominent markets.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– U Blox Holding AG 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of U Blox Holding AG Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG 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 U Blox Holding AG needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.