Prg (PRGH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prg (Malaysia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prg is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, 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, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prg

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

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

The strengths of Prg are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Prg 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Prg is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Prg 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.

Training and development

– Prg has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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

– Prg is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Learning organization

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

Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry

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

Analytics focus

– Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories 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.

Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prg digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prg 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Prg 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 Prg in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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

The weaknesses of Prg are -

Employees’ less understanding of Prg strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Prg 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 decision making process

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

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Prg, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Prg, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Apparel/Accessories 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Prg has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Prg should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Prg supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Prg is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Prg vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Prg 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Prg needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Prg can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Prg is planning to shift buying processes online.

Need for greater diversity

– Prg 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.

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

The opportunities of Prg are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Loyalty marketing

– Prg 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Prg can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Prg operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Prg is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Prg can utilize new technology in the field of Apparel/Accessories 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 Prg in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Prg 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Prg 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 Prg to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Creating value in data economy

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

Buying journey improvements

– Prg can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prg to increase its market reach. Prg 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Prg can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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

The threats of Prg are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Prg in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Prg 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.

Environmental challenges

– Prg 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. Prg can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.

Increasing wage structure of Prg

– 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 Prg.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Prg is facing in Apparel/Accessories 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Prg 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.

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. Prg 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.

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. Prg needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Prg has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Prg needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Prg may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Prg Template, Example

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

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