Keystone Law (KEYS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Keystone Law (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Keystone Law is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Keystone Law can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Keystone Law, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Keystone Law
2. Improving business portfolio management of Keystone Law
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Keystone Law
Strengths of Keystone Law | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Keystone Law are -
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Keystone Law 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
– Keystone Law is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Keystone Law is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Keystone Law 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.
High brand equity
– Keystone Law has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Keystone Law to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Keystone Law digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Keystone Law 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Keystone Law has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Keystone Law to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Keystone Law to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Keystone Law 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Keystone Law in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Keystone Law emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– Keystone Law is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Keystone Law in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Keystone Law 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Keystone Law comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business 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.
Weaknesses of Keystone Law | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Keystone Law are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Keystone Law has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Keystone Law lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Keystone Law, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Keystone Law has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Keystone Law supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Keystone Law is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Keystone Law vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Keystone Law products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Keystone Law needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Keystone Law is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Keystone Law 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Keystone Law has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business 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.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Keystone Law 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Keystone Law is just above the Business 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Keystone Law 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Keystone Law is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Keystone Law needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Keystone Law to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Keystone Law Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Keystone Law are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Keystone Law can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Keystone Law in the Business Services industry. Now Keystone Law can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Keystone Law is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Keystone Law can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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. Keystone Law can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Keystone Law can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Keystone Law operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Keystone Law 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Keystone Law has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Keystone Law to build a more holistic ecosystem for Keystone Law products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Keystone Law 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 Business Services industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Keystone Law has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Keystone Law to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Keystone Law to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Keystone Law 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.
Threats Keystone Law External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Keystone Law are -
Environmental challenges
– Keystone Law 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. Keystone Law can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Keystone Law can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Keystone Law 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Keystone Law 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Keystone Law with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business 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 Keystone Law.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Keystone Law has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Keystone Law needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Keystone Law is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Keystone Law
– 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 Keystone Law.
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 Keystone Law business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Keystone Law needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Keystone Law in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Keystone Law Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law 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 Keystone Law needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.