UP Global Sourcing (UPGS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for UP Global Sourcing (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , UP Global Sourcing is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of UP Global Sourcing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that UP Global Sourcing can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the UP Global Sourcing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of UP Global Sourcing
2. Improving business portfolio management of UP Global Sourcing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of UP Global Sourcing
Strengths of UP Global Sourcing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of UP Global Sourcing are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of UP Global Sourcing in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. UP Global Sourcing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps UP Global Sourcing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of UP Global Sourcing comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– UP Global Sourcing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. UP Global Sourcing 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.
Analytics focus
– UP Global Sourcing 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 Appliance & Tool 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.
Innovation driven organization
– UP Global Sourcing is one of the most innovative firm in Appliance & Tool sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of UP Global Sourcing in Appliance & Tool industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– UP Global Sourcing is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool 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)
– UP Global Sourcing has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – UP Global Sourcing staying ahead in the Appliance & Tool industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– UP Global Sourcing has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Appliance & Tool industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of UP Global Sourcing have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Appliance & Tool
– UP Global Sourcing is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Appliance & Tool industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled UP Global Sourcing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of UP Global Sourcing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing UP Global Sourcing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of UP Global Sourcing are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, UP Global Sourcing needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of UP Global Sourcing is just above the Appliance & Tool 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 dependence on UP Global Sourcing ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of UP Global Sourcing still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Appliance & Tool industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though UP Global Sourcing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of UP Global Sourcing is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Appliance & Tool industry, but UP Global Sourcing needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help UP Global Sourcing to focus more on services in the Appliance & Tool industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of UP Global Sourcing strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of UP Global Sourcing 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.
Skills based hiring in Appliance & Tool industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at UP Global Sourcing 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of UP Global Sourcing, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that UP Global Sourcing needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Appliance & Tool industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at UP Global Sourcing can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as UP Global Sourcing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, UP Global Sourcing is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help UP Global Sourcing to provide better information regarding Appliance & Tool products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of UP Global Sourcing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, UP Global Sourcing needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, UP Global Sourcing has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
UP Global Sourcing Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of UP Global Sourcing are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, UP Global Sourcing 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of UP Global Sourcing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help UP Global Sourcing to build a more holistic ecosystem for UP Global Sourcing products in the Appliance & Tool 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 UP Global Sourcing in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Appliance & Tool industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 UP Global Sourcing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– UP Global Sourcing has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Appliance & Tool sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled UP Global Sourcing to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help UP Global Sourcing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help UP Global Sourcing to increase its market reach. UP Global Sourcing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, UP Global Sourcing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. UP Global Sourcing can utilize new technology in the field of Appliance & Tool industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Appliance & Tool industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. UP Global Sourcing 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. UP Global Sourcing 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.
Manufacturing automation
– UP Global Sourcing can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Appliance & Tool 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
– UP Global Sourcing 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
– UP Global Sourcing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– UP Global Sourcing can develop new processes and procedures in Appliance & Tool 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for UP Global Sourcing 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.
Threats UP Global Sourcing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of UP Global Sourcing are -
Environmental challenges
– UP Global Sourcing 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. UP Global Sourcing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry.
Regulatory challenges
– UP Global Sourcing 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 Appliance & Tool industry regulations.
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 UP Global Sourcing is facing in Appliance & Tool sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Appliance & Tool industry are lowering. It can presents UP Global Sourcing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Appliance & Tool sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– UP Global Sourcing 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. UP Global Sourcing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– UP Global Sourcing 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.
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 UP Global Sourcing business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. UP Global Sourcing 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.
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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– UP Global Sourcing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Appliance & Tool industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, UP Global Sourcing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of UP Global Sourcing Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing 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 UP Global Sourcing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.