Ab Dynamics (ABDP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ab Dynamics (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ab Dynamics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ab Dynamics

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ab Dynamics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ab Dynamics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ab Dynamics 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Ab Dynamics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ab Dynamics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ab Dynamics
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 Ab Dynamics

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Strengths of Ab Dynamics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Ab Dynamics are -

High brand equity

– Ab Dynamics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ab Dynamics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry

– Ab Dynamics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ab Dynamics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ab Dynamics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Scientific & Technical Instr.

– Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Ab Dynamics

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ab Dynamics 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

– Ab Dynamics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ab Dynamics 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry

– Ab Dynamics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Innovation driven organization

– Ab Dynamics is one of the most innovative firm in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.

Diverse revenue streams

– Ab Dynamics is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided Ab Dynamics 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.

Learning organization

- Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ab Dynamics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Ab Dynamics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ab Dynamics 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.

Training and development

– Ab Dynamics has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Ab Dynamics 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.

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Weaknesses of Ab Dynamics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Ab Dynamics are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Ab Dynamics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but Ab Dynamics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ab Dynamics to focus more on services in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Employees’ less understanding of Ab Dynamics strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ab Dynamics 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Ab Dynamics 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Ab Dynamics 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ab Dynamics 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. Ab Dynamics 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, Ab Dynamics 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Ab Dynamics products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ab Dynamics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Need for greater diversity

– Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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. Ab Dynamics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Ab Dynamics, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ab Dynamics 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.

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Ab Dynamics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Ab Dynamics are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Ab Dynamics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ab Dynamics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ab Dynamics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Ab Dynamics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can help Ab Dynamics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ab Dynamics products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ab Dynamics 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ab Dynamics 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Ab Dynamics 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Ab Dynamics 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ab Dynamics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– Ab Dynamics 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ab Dynamics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ab Dynamics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.

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. Ab Dynamics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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Threats Ab Dynamics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Ab Dynamics 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ab Dynamics 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.

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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ab Dynamics can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Ab Dynamics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ab Dynamics 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Ab Dynamics 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Ab Dynamics is facing in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Ab Dynamics

– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Ab Dynamics.

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. Ab Dynamics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Ab Dynamics 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.

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 Ab Dynamics in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Ab Dynamics 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ab Dynamics Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics 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 Ab Dynamics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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