SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Edinburgh Worldwide (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Edinburgh Worldwide is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Edinburgh Worldwide
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Edinburgh Worldwide can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Edinburgh Worldwide, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Edinburgh Worldwide
2. Improving business portfolio management of Edinburgh Worldwide
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 Worldwide
Strengths of Edinburgh Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Edinburgh Worldwide are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Edinburgh Worldwide has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Edinburgh Worldwide staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Edinburgh Worldwide in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Edinburgh Worldwide is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Edinburgh Worldwide has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Edinburgh Worldwide to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Edinburgh Worldwide to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Edinburgh Worldwide is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Edinburgh Worldwide digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Misc. Financial Services
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Edinburgh Worldwide in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Edinburgh Worldwide has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Edinburgh Worldwide to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Learning organization
- Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Edinburgh Worldwide emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Edinburgh Worldwide is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Edinburgh Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Edinburgh Worldwide are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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 Worldwide can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Edinburgh Worldwide is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Edinburgh Worldwide needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Edinburgh Worldwide strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
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 Edinburgh Worldwide supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Edinburgh Worldwide is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Edinburgh Worldwide vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Edinburgh Worldwide has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Edinburgh Worldwide should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Edinburgh Worldwide is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Edinburgh Worldwide needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Edinburgh Worldwide to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Edinburgh Worldwide, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial Services industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Edinburgh Worldwide Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Edinburgh Worldwide are -
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 Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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.
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 Worldwide can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Edinburgh Worldwide operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Edinburgh Worldwide has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Edinburgh Worldwide to build a more holistic ecosystem for Edinburgh Worldwide products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Edinburgh Worldwide can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Edinburgh Worldwide can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Edinburgh Worldwide to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Worldwide 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Edinburgh Worldwide in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Edinburgh Worldwide can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Edinburgh Worldwide has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Edinburgh Worldwide to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Edinburgh Worldwide to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Edinburgh Worldwide can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Edinburgh Worldwide is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Threats Edinburgh Worldwide External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Edinburgh Worldwide are -
Environmental challenges
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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. Edinburgh Worldwide can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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. Edinburgh Worldwide needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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 Edinburgh Worldwide in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Worldwide can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Edinburgh Worldwide prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Edinburgh Worldwide 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.
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 Edinburgh Worldwide.
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 Worldwide business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Edinburgh Worldwide Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Edinburgh Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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 Worldwide 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 Worldwide needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
