Minoan (MIN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Minoan (United Kingdom)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Minoan is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Minoan

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Minoan can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Minoan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Minoan 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Minoan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Minoan
2. Improving business portfolio management of Minoan
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Minoan

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Strengths of Minoan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Minoan are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Minoan comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Activities 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Minoan has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Activities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Minoan have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

High brand equity

– Minoan has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Minoan to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Organizational Resilience of Minoan

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Minoan does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Minoan digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Minoan has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Minoan in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Minoan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Minoan to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Ability to lead change in Recreational Activities

– Minoan is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Activities industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Minoan in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Minoan in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Minoan has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Minoan staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry

– Minoan has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Minoan to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Activities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Minoan to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Minoan has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Minoan 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Minoan 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.

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Weaknesses of Minoan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Minoan are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Minoan is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Minoan has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry over the last five years. Minoan 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Minoan products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Minoan needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Minoan has high operating costs in the Recreational Activities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Minoan lucrative customers.

Need for greater diversity

– Minoan has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Minoan 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 Recreational Activities industry using digital technology.

Skills based hiring in Recreational Activities industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Minoan 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, Minoan needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Employees’ less understanding of Minoan strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Minoan 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.

High dependence on Minoan ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Minoan still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Activities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Minoan 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, Minoan is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Minoan to provide better information regarding Recreational Activities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

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Minoan Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Minoan are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Minoan has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Activities industry. This can help Minoan to build a more holistic ecosystem for Minoan products in the Recreational Activities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Minoan has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Minoan to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Minoan to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Minoan 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Minoan 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 Minoan to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Minoan 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Activities industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Minoan in the Recreational Activities industry. Now Minoan can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Minoan is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Minoan can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Minoan can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Minoan 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.

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. Minoan can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Minoan in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Activities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Activities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Minoan 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. Minoan 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

– Minoan can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Activities 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.

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Threats Minoan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Minoan are -

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 Minoan.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Minoan 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Minoan can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Increasing wage structure of Minoan

– 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 Minoan.

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.

Regulatory challenges

– Minoan 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.

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. Minoan needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Activities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Minoan is facing in Recreational Activities 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.

Environmental challenges

– Minoan 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. Minoan can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Minoan in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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.

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 Minoan in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Minoan 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 Recreational Activities industry.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Minoan Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Minoan 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 Minoan 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 Minoan 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 Minoan 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 Minoan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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