SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Symphony Environmental (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Symphony Environmental is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, 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%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Symphony Environmental
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Symphony Environmental can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Symphony Environmental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Symphony Environmental
2. Improving business portfolio management of Symphony Environmental
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Symphony Environmental
Strengths of Symphony Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Symphony Environmental are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Symphony Environmental in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Symphony Environmental has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Symphony Environmental to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Symphony Environmental has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Symphony Environmental staying ahead in the Containers & Packaging industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Symphony Environmental
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Symphony Environmental does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Symphony Environmental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Symphony Environmental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Symphony Environmental has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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 lead change in Containers & Packaging
– Symphony Environmental is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Containers & Packaging industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Symphony Environmental in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Symphony Environmental has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Containers & Packaging industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Symphony Environmental have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Symphony Environmental in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Symphony Environmental emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Symphony Environmental comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Symphony Environmental is one of the most innovative firm in Containers & Packaging sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Symphony Environmental 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.
Weaknesses of Symphony Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Symphony Environmental are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Symphony Environmental has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry over the last five years. Symphony Environmental 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Symphony Environmental is just above the Containers & Packaging 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Symphony Environmental, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Containers & Packaging 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Symphony Environmental 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Symphony Environmental is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Containers & Packaging industry, but Symphony Environmental needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Symphony Environmental to focus more on services in the Containers & Packaging industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Symphony Environmental ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Symphony Environmental still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Containers & Packaging industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Symphony Environmental has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Symphony Environmental has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Symphony Environmental should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Symphony Environmental has high operating costs in the Containers & Packaging industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Symphony Environmental lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Containers & Packaging industry, Symphony Environmental 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Symphony Environmental is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Symphony Environmental to provide better information regarding Containers & Packaging products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Symphony Environmental 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 Containers & Packaging industry using digital technology.
Symphony Environmental Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Symphony Environmental are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Containers & Packaging industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Symphony Environmental 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. Symphony Environmental 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Symphony Environmental 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Symphony Environmental has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Containers & Packaging sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Symphony Environmental to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Symphony Environmental to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Symphony Environmental in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Symphony Environmental can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Containers & Packaging 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.
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 Symphony Environmental 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Symphony Environmental can develop new processes and procedures in Containers & Packaging 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Symphony Environmental can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Symphony Environmental is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Symphony Environmental can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging 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 Symphony Environmental 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Symphony Environmental has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Containers & Packaging industry. This can help Symphony Environmental to build a more holistic ecosystem for Symphony Environmental products in the Containers & Packaging 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 Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Symphony Environmental External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Symphony Environmental are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Symphony Environmental 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Symphony Environmental 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Symphony Environmental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Containers & Packaging industry are lowering. It can presents Symphony Environmental with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Containers & Packaging sector.
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. Symphony Environmental needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Containers & Packaging industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Symphony Environmental 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Symphony Environmental in Containers & Packaging industry. The Containers & Packaging 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Symphony Environmental is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Symphony Environmental may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Containers & Packaging sector.
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 Symphony Environmental.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Symphony Environmental Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental 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 Symphony Environmental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.