SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for TLA Worldwide (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , TLA Worldwide is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that TLA Worldwide can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the TLA Worldwide, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of TLA Worldwide
2. Improving business portfolio management of TLA Worldwide
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 TLA Worldwide
Strengths of TLA Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of TLA Worldwide are -
High brand equity
– TLA Worldwide has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled TLA Worldwide to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– TLA Worldwide is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of TLA Worldwide 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry
– TLA Worldwide has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled TLA Worldwide to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Activities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped TLA Worldwide to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– TLA Worldwide has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. TLA Worldwide 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.
Learning organization
- TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at TLA Worldwide emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– TLA Worldwide is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Activities industry. This has provided TLA Worldwide 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.
Organizational Resilience of TLA Worldwide
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing TLA Worldwide does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the TLA Worldwide 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that TLA Worldwide 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For TLA Worldwide digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. TLA Worldwide 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.
Weaknesses of TLA Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of TLA Worldwide are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
TLA Worldwide has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Activities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As TLA Worldwide 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.
Employees’ less understanding of TLA Worldwide strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of TLA Worldwide don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Skills based hiring in Recreational Activities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at TLA Worldwide 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Recreational Activities industry, TLA Worldwide 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of TLA Worldwide, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Activities 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.
Need for greater diversity
– TLA Worldwide 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, TLA Worldwide 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, TLA Worldwide 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.
High dependence on TLA Worldwide ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though TLA Worldwide has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Activities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. TLA Worldwide should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
TLA Worldwide Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of TLA Worldwide are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of TLA Worldwide has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Activities industry. This can help TLA Worldwide to build a more holistic ecosystem for TLA Worldwide products in the Recreational Activities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– TLA Worldwide 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help TLA Worldwide to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at TLA Worldwide 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, TLA Worldwide 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.
Loyalty marketing
– TLA Worldwide 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. TLA Worldwide can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help TLA Worldwide to increase its market reach. TLA Worldwide will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for TLA Worldwide 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects TLA Worldwide can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. TLA Worldwide 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. TLA Worldwide 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.
Threats TLA Worldwide External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of TLA Worldwide are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Activities industry are lowering. It can presents TLA Worldwide with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Activities sector.
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. TLA Worldwide 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
– TLA Worldwide 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, TLA Worldwide may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Activities 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. TLA Worldwide needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Activities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– TLA Worldwide has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Activities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, TLA Worldwide needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Activities 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for TLA Worldwide 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on TLA Worldwide 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.
Increasing wage structure of TLA Worldwide
– 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 TLA Worldwide.
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 TLA Worldwide business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– TLA Worldwide 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of TLA Worldwide Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide 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 TLA Worldwide needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.