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Pacific Orient (PACO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pacific Orient (Malaysia)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pacific Orient is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pacific Orient


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Pacific Orient can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pacific Orient, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Pacific Orient
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pacific Orient
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Pacific Orient




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

The strengths of Pacific Orient are -

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Pacific Orient 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Pacific Orient in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Pacific Orient is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Pacific Orient has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Pacific Orient staying ahead in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Pacific Orient comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.

Training and development

– Pacific Orient has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.

Learning organization

- Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Pacific Orient emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– Pacific Orient is one of the most innovative firm in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector.

Organizational Resilience of Pacific Orient

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Pacific Orient 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry

– Pacific Orient is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.






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

The weaknesses of Pacific Orient are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Pacific Orient is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, but Pacific Orient needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pacific Orient to focus more on services in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Pacific Orient 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry using digital technology.

Employees’ less understanding of Pacific Orient strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Pacific Orient 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Pacific Orient needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Pacific Orient can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pacific Orient is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, Pacific Orient 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Pacific Orient has high operating costs in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Pacific Orient lucrative customers.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Pacific Orient is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry in last five years.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Pacific Orient, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Pacific Orient has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Pacific Orient has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Skills based hiring in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pacific Orient 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Pacific Orient is just above the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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.




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


The opportunities of Pacific Orient are -

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pacific Orient can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pacific Orient operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Pacific Orient 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Pacific Orient has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This can help Pacific Orient to build a more holistic ecosystem for Pacific Orient products in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Manufacturing automation

– Pacific Orient can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 Pacific Orient can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Pacific Orient is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Pacific Orient can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– Pacific Orient can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) 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 Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pacific Orient 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Pacific Orient 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Pacific Orient 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. Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Pacific Orient are -

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 Pacific Orient in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Pacific Orient may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Pacific Orient 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.

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. Pacific Orient 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 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.

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 Pacific Orient 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 Pacific Orient.

Environmental challenges

– Pacific Orient 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. Pacific Orient can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Pacific Orient 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 Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry and other sectors.

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. Pacific Orient needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Pacific Orient is facing in Insurance (Prop. & Casualty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Pacific Orient 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pacific Orient Template, Example


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



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