SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for VietNam Holding (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , VietNam Holding is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that VietNam Holding can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the VietNam Holding, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of VietNam Holding
2. Improving business portfolio management of VietNam Holding
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 VietNam Holding
Strengths of VietNam Holding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of VietNam Holding are -
Training and development
– VietNam Holding has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– VietNam Holding has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– VietNam Holding has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled VietNam Holding to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– VietNam Holding has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. VietNam Holding 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.
Learning organization
- VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at VietNam Holding emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of VietNam Holding comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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 VietNam Holding in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. VietNam Holding has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps VietNam Holding to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– VietNam Holding is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided VietNam Holding 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– VietNam Holding has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled VietNam Holding to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped VietNam Holding to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of VietNam Holding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of VietNam Holding are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of VietNam Holding, 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, VietNam Holding needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, VietNam Holding 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at VietNam Holding, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. VietNam Holding has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, VietNam Holding is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help VietNam Holding to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as VietNam Holding is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though VietNam Holding 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. VietNam Holding should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on VietNam Holding ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of VietNam Holding still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though VietNam Holding has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, VietNam Holding has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract VietNam Holding lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of VietNam Holding is just above the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of VietNam Holding products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, VietNam Holding needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
VietNam Holding Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of VietNam Holding are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help VietNam Holding to increase its market reach. VietNam Holding 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.
Manufacturing automation
– VietNam Holding can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, VietNam Holding can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Buying journey improvements
– VietNam Holding 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.
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. VietNam Holding can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help VietNam Holding to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, VietNam Holding can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that VietNam Holding operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for VietNam Holding 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.
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. VietNam Holding 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. VietNam Holding 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.
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 VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help VietNam Holding to build a more holistic ecosystem for VietNam Holding products in the Misc. Financial Services 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 VietNam Holding 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. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats VietNam Holding External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of VietNam Holding are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents VietNam Holding 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.
Increasing wage structure of VietNam Holding
– 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 VietNam Holding.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for VietNam Holding in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial Services 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– VietNam Holding 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, VietNam Holding 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.
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 VietNam Holding.
Consumer confidence and its impact on VietNam Holding 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.
Regulatory challenges
– VietNam Holding 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. Financial Services industry regulations.
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 VietNam Holding in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. VietNam Holding needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– VietNam Holding has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, VietNam Holding 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of VietNam Holding Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding 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 VietNam Holding needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.