Norman Broadbent (NBB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Norman Broadbent (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Norman Broadbent is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, 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 energy prices, increasing commodity prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Norman Broadbent can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Norman Broadbent, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Norman Broadbent
2. Improving business portfolio management of Norman Broadbent
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 Norman Broadbent
Strengths of Norman Broadbent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Norman Broadbent are -
Organizational Resilience of Norman Broadbent
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Norman Broadbent does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Norman Broadbent 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 Business Services 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Norman Broadbent has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Norman Broadbent staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Norman Broadbent has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Norman Broadbent has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Norman Broadbent to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Norman Broadbent to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Norman Broadbent 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Norman Broadbent in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Norman Broadbent is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Norman Broadbent has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Norman Broadbent have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Norman Broadbent are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Norman Broadbent is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Business Services industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Norman Broadbent 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Norman Broadbent is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Norman Broadbent needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Norman Broadbent to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Norman Broadbent, 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Norman Broadbent 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Norman Broadbent has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Norman Broadbent should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Norman Broadbent has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Norman Broadbent 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 dependence on Norman Broadbent ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Norman Broadbent is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Norman Broadbent to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Norman Broadbent 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Norman Broadbent needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Norman Broadbent Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Norman Broadbent are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Norman Broadbent in the Business Services industry. Now Norman Broadbent can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Norman Broadbent can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Norman Broadbent can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Norman Broadbent operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Norman Broadbent 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Norman Broadbent can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Norman Broadbent 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Norman Broadbent 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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, Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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.
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. Norman Broadbent 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. Norman Broadbent 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Norman Broadbent to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Norman Broadbent External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Norman Broadbent are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Norman Broadbent 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Norman Broadbent 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
– Norman Broadbent 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Norman Broadbent 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Norman Broadbent has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Norman Broadbent 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.
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. Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent prominent markets.
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 Norman Broadbent business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Norman Broadbent 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.
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. Norman Broadbent needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Norman Broadbent
– 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 Norman Broadbent.
Environmental challenges
– Norman Broadbent 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. Norman Broadbent can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Norman Broadbent Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent 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 Norman Broadbent needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.