Gooch&Housego (GHH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Scientific & Technical Instr.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gooch&Housego (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gooch&Housego is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gooch&Housego can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gooch&Housego, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gooch&Housego
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gooch&Housego
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gooch&Housego
Strengths of Gooch&Housego | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gooch&Housego are -
Analytics focus
– Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gooch&Housego has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Gooch&Housego have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gooch&Housego in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gooch&Housego 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.
Learning organization
- Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gooch&Housego emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Scientific & Technical Instr.
– Gooch&Housego is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Gooch&Housego in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Gooch&Housego comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gooch&Housego in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Gooch&Housego has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gooch&Housego to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gooch&Housego is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided Gooch&Housego 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gooch&Housego has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gooch&Housego staying ahead in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Gooch&Housego
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gooch&Housego does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Gooch&Housego has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Gooch&Housego 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.
Weaknesses of Gooch&Housego | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gooch&Housego are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, Gooch&Housego needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Gooch&Housego needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gooch&Housego has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry over the last five years. Gooch&Housego 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gooch&Housego is just above the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gooch&Housego has some of the most successful models in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Gooch&Housego should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Gooch&Housego, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gooch&Housego has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gooch&Housego is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gooch&Housego 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.
Skills based hiring in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Gooch&Housego 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gooch&Housego is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but Gooch&Housego needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gooch&Housego to focus more on services in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gooch&Housego has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Gooch&Housego Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gooch&Housego are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gooch&Housego can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gooch&Housego has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can help Gooch&Housego to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gooch&Housego products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Gooch&Housego can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gooch&Housego can develop new processes and procedures in Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gooch&Housego can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gooch&Housego in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Gooch&Housego 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. Gooch&Housego 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gooch&Housego 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.
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 Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Gooch&Housego in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Now Gooch&Housego can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Threats Gooch&Housego External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gooch&Housego are -
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.
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. Gooch&Housego 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.
Environmental challenges
– Gooch&Housego 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. Gooch&Housego can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gooch&Housego 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gooch&Housego in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Gooch&Housego 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry regulations.
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 Gooch&Housego in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Gooch&Housego.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gooch&Housego may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gooch&Housego has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gooch&Housego needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 Gooch&Housego business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gooch&Housego Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego 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 Gooch&Housego needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.