SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for SRT Marine (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , SRT Marine is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices,
technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that SRT Marine can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the SRT Marine, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of SRT Marine
2. Improving business portfolio management of SRT Marine
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of SRT Marine
Strengths of SRT Marine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of SRT Marine are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of SRT Marine comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– SRT Marine has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of SRT Marine have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– SRT Marine is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– SRT Marine has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – SRT Marine staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry
– SRT Marine has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled SRT Marine to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped SRT Marine to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– SRT Marine is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided SRT Marine 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that SRT Marine 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.
Ability to lead change in Communications Equipment
– SRT Marine is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Equipment industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled SRT Marine in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of SRT Marine in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. SRT Marine has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps SRT Marine to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– SRT Marine 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 Communications Equipment 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.
Learning organization
- SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at SRT Marine emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– SRT Marine is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of SRT Marine | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of SRT Marine are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of SRT Marine is just above the Communications Equipment 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, SRT Marine has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. SRT Marine 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of SRT Marine is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Equipment industry, but SRT Marine needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help SRT Marine to focus more on services in the Communications Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at SRT Marine, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. SRT Marine has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on SRT Marine ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of SRT Marine still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though SRT Marine has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As SRT Marine is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, SRT Marine 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at SRT Marine 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though SRT Marine has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. SRT Marine should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of SRT Marine products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, SRT Marine needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of SRT Marine strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of SRT Marine 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.
SRT Marine Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of SRT Marine are -
Loyalty marketing
– SRT Marine 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– SRT Marine has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled SRT Marine to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, SRT Marine is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. SRT Marine can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, SRT Marine 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. SRT Marine can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. SRT Marine 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. SRT Marine 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. SRT Marine can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– SRT Marine 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for SRT Marine 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.
Buying journey improvements
– SRT Marine can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at SRT Marine 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Threats SRT Marine External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of SRT Marine are -
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. SRT Marine 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– SRT Marine has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, SRT Marine needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.
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 SRT Marine in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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
– SRT Marine 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of SRT Marine
– 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 SRT Marine.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. SRT Marine can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that SRT Marine is facing in Communications Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents SRT Marine with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, SRT Marine may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.
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
– SRT Marine 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of SRT Marine Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine 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 SRT Marine needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.