Victoria (VCP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Textiles - Non Apparel
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Victoria (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Victoria is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Victoria can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Victoria, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Victoria 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 Victoria can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Victoria
2. Improving business portfolio management of Victoria
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Textiles - Non Apparel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Victoria
Strengths of Victoria | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Victoria are -
Strong track record of project management in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– Victoria is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Victoria 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– Victoria has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Victoria to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Victoria to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Victoria digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Victoria 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.
Ability to lead change in Textiles - Non Apparel
– Victoria is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Victoria in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Victoria has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Victoria have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Victoria is present in almost all the verticals within the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This has provided Victoria 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.
Training and development
– Victoria has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Victoria has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Victoria 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Victoria comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Victoria has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Victoria staying ahead in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Victoria 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.
Weaknesses of Victoria | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Victoria are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Victoria, in the dynamic environment of Textiles - Non Apparel industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Victoria 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 Victoria, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Victoria needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Victoria can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Victoria is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Victoria is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Victoria has some of the most successful models in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Victoria should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Victoria supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Victoria is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Victoria vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Victoria is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Victoria to provide better information regarding Textiles - Non Apparel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Victoria has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Victoria 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Victoria needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Victoria 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Victoria Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Victoria are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Victoria in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Now Victoria can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Victoria can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Victoria is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Victoria can utilize new technology in the field of Textiles - Non Apparel industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Victoria to increase its market reach. Victoria 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Victoria has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Victoria to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Victoria to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Victoria can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Victoria operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Victoria 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. Victoria 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Textiles - Non Apparel industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Victoria can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Victoria 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Victoria can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Victoria in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Victoria 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Victoria 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.
Threats Victoria External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Victoria are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Textiles - Non Apparel industry are lowering. It can presents Victoria with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Textiles - Non Apparel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Victoria 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, Victoria may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
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.
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 Victoria.
Environmental challenges
– Victoria 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. Victoria can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Victoria 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
– Victoria has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Victoria needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
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 Victoria business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Victoria in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. The Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Victoria 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 Textiles - Non Apparel 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. Victoria needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Victoria Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Victoria 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 Victoria 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 Victoria 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 Victoria 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 Victoria needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
