Trifast (TRFT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Trifast (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Trifast is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Trifast can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Trifast, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Trifast 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 Trifast can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Trifast
2. Improving business portfolio management of Trifast
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Trifast
Strengths of Trifast | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Trifast are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Trifast has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Trifast to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Trifast to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Trifast is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Trifast is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Learning organization
- Trifast 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 Trifast is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Trifast emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Trifast has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Trifast 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Trifast has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Trifast have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Trifast 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Trifast has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Trifast staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Trifast has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Trifast to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Trifast 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Trifast in Misc. Fabricated Products 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 Trifast 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 Trifast | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Trifast are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Trifast, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Trifast strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Trifast 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 Trifast is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
High dependence on Trifast ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Trifast still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Trifast has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Trifast, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Trifast has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Trifast has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Trifast has high operating costs in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Trifast lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Trifast 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Trifast 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Trifast is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Trifast to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Trifast 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Trifast Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Trifast are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Trifast 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 Trifast has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Trifast to build a more holistic ecosystem for Trifast products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Trifast can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Trifast 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. Trifast 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Trifast can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Trifast 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Trifast is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Trifast can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, Trifast can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Trifast operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Trifast 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Trifast in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Trifast can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Trifast to increase its market reach. Trifast 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Trifast 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 Trifast 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 Trifast in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Trifast External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Trifast are -
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 Trifast in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Trifast is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Trifast 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. Fabricated Products sector.
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. Trifast will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Trifast 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. Fabricated Products industry.
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 Trifast business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Trifast 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. Trifast can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Trifast 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 Trifast prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Trifast 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Trifast 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Trifast in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Trifast Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Trifast 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 Trifast 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 Trifast 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 Trifast 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 Trifast needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
