Wentworth (WEN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Wentworth (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Wentworth is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, 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 Wentworth can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wentworth, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wentworth 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 Wentworth can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Wentworth
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wentworth
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wentworth
Strengths of Wentworth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wentworth are -
Training and development
– Wentworth has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wentworth is one of the leading players in the 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wentworth in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wentworth has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Wentworth have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Wentworth
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Wentworth does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wentworth digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wentworth 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Wentworth comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Analytics focus
– Wentworth 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 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.
High brand equity
– Wentworth has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wentworth to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Wentworth 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)
– Wentworth has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Wentworth staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wentworth 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 Wentworth | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wentworth are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wentworth has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Wentworth 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Wentworth needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Wentworth can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wentworth is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Wentworth ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Wentworth still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Wentworth has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Wentworth 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Wentworth, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Wentworth has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wentworth 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 industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Wentworth is just above the 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Wentworth needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wentworth is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Wentworth to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wentworth products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wentworth needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Wentworth strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Wentworth 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.
Wentworth Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Wentworth are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Wentworth 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 Wentworth to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wentworth 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Wentworth can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wentworth 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wentworth is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Wentworth can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Wentworth in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the 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 Wentworth 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 Wentworth 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, Wentworth 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.
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 Wentworth 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Wentworth in the industry. Now Wentworth can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Wentworth can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Wentworth operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wentworth can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wentworth has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Wentworth to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wentworth to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Wentworth External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Wentworth are -
Increasing wage structure of Wentworth
– 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 Wentworth.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wentworth 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 Wentworth prominent markets.
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. Wentworth needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Wentworth 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 industry regulations.
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. Wentworth 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wentworth in industry. The 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Wentworth may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wentworth is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Wentworth 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 industry and other sectors.
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 Wentworth.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wentworth 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 industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wentworth Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Wentworth 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 Wentworth 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 Wentworth 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 Wentworth 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 Wentworth needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.