Murgitroyd (MURG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Murgitroyd (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Murgitroyd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Murgitroyd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Murgitroyd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Murgitroyd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Murgitroyd
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 Murgitroyd
Strengths of Murgitroyd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Murgitroyd are -
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Murgitroyd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Murgitroyd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Murgitroyd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Murgitroyd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Murgitroyd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Murgitroyd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Murgitroyd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Murgitroyd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Murgitroyd in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Murgitroyd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Murgitroyd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Murgitroyd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Murgitroyd 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Murgitroyd is one of the leading players in the Business Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Murgitroyd is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Murgitroyd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Murgitroyd is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Training and development
– Murgitroyd has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Weaknesses of Murgitroyd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Murgitroyd are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Murgitroyd 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Murgitroyd 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Murgitroyd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Murgitroyd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Murgitroyd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Murgitroyd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Murgitroyd to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Murgitroyd 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 Business Services industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Murgitroyd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Murgitroyd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Murgitroyd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Murgitroyd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Murgitroyd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Murgitroyd to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Murgitroyd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Murgitroyd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Murgitroyd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Murgitroyd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business 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.
Murgitroyd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Murgitroyd are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Murgitroyd can develop new processes and procedures in Business Services 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Murgitroyd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Murgitroyd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Murgitroyd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Murgitroyd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Murgitroyd 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Murgitroyd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Murgitroyd 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. Murgitroyd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Murgitroyd 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
– Murgitroyd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Murgitroyd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Murgitroyd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business 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. Murgitroyd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Murgitroyd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Murgitroyd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd prominent markets.
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 Murgitroyd in Business Services industry. The Business 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.
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 Murgitroyd in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Murgitroyd 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 Business Services industry.
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 Murgitroyd.
Regulatory challenges
– Murgitroyd 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 Business Services industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Murgitroyd
– 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 Murgitroyd.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Murgitroyd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services 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. Murgitroyd 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.
Environmental challenges
– Murgitroyd 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. Murgitroyd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Murgitroyd 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Murgitroyd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Murgitroyd 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Murgitroyd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd 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 Murgitroyd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.