Ideal Jacobs Malaysia (IJAC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ideal Jacobs Malaysia (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ideal Jacobs Malaysia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia
Strengths of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ideal Jacobs Malaysia to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ideal Jacobs Malaysia staying ahead in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ideal Jacobs Malaysia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is one of the most innovative firm in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ideal Jacobs Malaysia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ideal Jacobs Malaysia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ideal Jacobs Malaysia emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ideal Jacobs Malaysia needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ideal Jacobs Malaysia, in the dynamic environment of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is just above the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Ideal Jacobs Malaysia Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ideal Jacobs Malaysia to increase its market reach. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Ideal Jacobs Malaysia to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ideal Jacobs Malaysia products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ideal Jacobs Malaysia in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Ideal Jacobs Malaysia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ideal Jacobs Malaysia is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ideal Jacobs Malaysia may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ideal Jacobs Malaysia Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia 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 Ideal Jacobs Malaysia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.