Red Sena Bhd (RED) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Red Sena Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Red Sena Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Red Sena Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Red Sena Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Red Sena Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Red Sena Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Red Sena Bhd
Strengths of Red Sena Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Red Sena Bhd are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Red Sena Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Red Sena Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Red Sena Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Red Sena Bhd in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Red Sena Bhd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Red Sena Bhd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Red Sena Bhd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Red Sena Bhd in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Red Sena Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Red Sena Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Red Sena Bhd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd 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.
Learning organization
- Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Red Sena Bhd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Red Sena Bhd is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Red Sena Bhd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Red Sena Bhd is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Analytics focus
– Red Sena Bhd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Weaknesses of Red Sena Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Red Sena Bhd are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Red Sena Bhd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Red Sena Bhd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Red Sena Bhd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Red Sena Bhd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Red Sena Bhd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Red Sena Bhd to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Red Sena Bhd 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Red Sena Bhd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Red Sena Bhd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Red Sena Bhd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Red Sena Bhd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Red Sena Bhd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Red Sena Bhd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Red Sena Bhd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Red Sena Bhd has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Red Sena Bhd lucrative customers.
Red Sena Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Red Sena Bhd are -
Manufacturing automation
– Red Sena Bhd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Red Sena Bhd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Red Sena Bhd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Red Sena Bhd can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Red Sena Bhd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Red Sena Bhd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Red Sena Bhd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Red Sena Bhd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Red Sena Bhd products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Red Sena Bhd in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Red Sena Bhd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Red Sena Bhd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Red Sena Bhd can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Red Sena Bhd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Red Sena Bhd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Red Sena Bhd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Red Sena Bhd 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. Red Sena Bhd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Red Sena Bhd to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Red Sena Bhd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Red Sena Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Red Sena Bhd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Red Sena Bhd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Red Sena Bhd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Red Sena Bhd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Red Sena Bhd.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Red Sena Bhd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Financial Services sector.
Environmental challenges
– Red Sena Bhd 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. Red Sena Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Red Sena Bhd 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Red Sena Bhd in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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.
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.
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. Red Sena Bhd 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Red Sena Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Red Sena Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Red Sena Bhd 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 Misc. Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Red Sena Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd 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 Red Sena Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.