Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , TF & JH Braime is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that TF & JH Braime can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the TF & JH Braime, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of TF & JH Braime
2. Improving business portfolio management of TF & JH Braime
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of TF & JH Braime
Strengths of TF & JH Braime | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of TF & JH Braime are -
Analytics focus
– TF & JH Braime 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 Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of TF & JH Braime in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. TF & JH Braime has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps TF & JH Braime to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Capital Goods industry
– TF & JH Braime is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– TF & JH Braime is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided TF & JH Braime 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.
Learning organization
- TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at TF & JH Braime emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– TF & JH Braime has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. TF & JH Braime 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the TF & JH Braime 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.
Innovation driven organization
– TF & JH Braime is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of TF & JH Braime comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– TF & JH Braime has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled TF & JH Braime to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped TF & JH Braime to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– TF & JH Braime has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled TF & JH Braime to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of TF & JH Braime
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing TF & JH Braime does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of TF & JH Braime | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of TF & JH Braime are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that TF & JH Braime needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Capital Goods industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at TF & JH Braime can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as TF & JH Braime is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, TF & JH Braime needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As TF & JH Braime is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, TF & JH Braime 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, TF & JH Braime has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry over the last five years. TF & JH Braime 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
TF & JH Braime has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 TF & JH Braime supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, TF & JH Braime is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left TF & JH Braime vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of TF & JH Braime products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, TF & JH Braime needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, TF & JH Braime is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help TF & JH Braime to provide better information regarding Misc. Capital Goods products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of TF & JH Braime strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of TF & JH Braime 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, TF & JH Braime 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.
TF & JH Braime Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of TF & JH Braime are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, TF & JH Braime 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for TF & JH Braime in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now TF & JH Braime can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. TF & JH Braime can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at TF & JH Braime 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Capital Goods industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. TF & JH Braime 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. TF & JH Braime 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects TF & JH Braime can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for TF & JH Braime in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– TF & JH Braime 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.
Buying journey improvements
– TF & JH Braime can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of TF & JH Braime has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help TF & JH Braime to build a more holistic ecosystem for TF & JH Braime products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, TF & JH Braime is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. TF & JH Braime can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– TF & JH Braime can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Threats TF & JH Braime External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of TF & JH Braime are -
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 TF & JH Braime in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. TF & JH Braime can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, TF & JH Braime may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Capital Goods 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. TF & JH Braime 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
– TF & JH Braime 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. TF & JH Braime can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– TF & JH Braime has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, TF & JH Braime needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– TF & JH Braime 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of TF & JH Braime
– 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 TF & JH Braime.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for TF & JH Braime in Misc. Capital Goods industry. The Misc. Capital Goods 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– TF & JH Braime 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of TF & JH Braime Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime 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 TF & JH Braime needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.