EA Technique M (EATE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for EA Technique M (Malaysia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , EA Technique M is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of EA Technique M

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

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Strengths of EA Technique M | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of EA Technique M are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of EA Technique M in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry

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

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry

– EA Technique M has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled EA Technique M to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped EA Technique M to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Innovation driven organization

– EA Technique M is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.

Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of EA Technique M in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. EA Technique M has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps EA Technique M to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

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

Training and development

– EA Technique M has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– EA Technique M is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of EA Technique M comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that EA Technique M 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.

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Weaknesses of EA Technique M | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of EA Technique M are -

Need for greater diversity

– EA Technique M 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, EA Technique M 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.

High dependence on EA Technique M ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of EA Technique M still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though EA Technique M has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of EA Technique M is just above the Water Transportation 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

EA Technique M has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of EA Technique M, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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, EA Technique M needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, EA Technique M 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 EA Technique M, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. EA Technique M has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, EA Technique M is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help EA Technique M to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Lack of clear differentiation of EA Technique M products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, EA Technique M needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

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EA Technique M Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of EA Technique M are -

Buying journey improvements

– EA Technique M can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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 Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. EA Technique M can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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. EA Technique M can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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 EA Technique M 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for EA Technique M in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, EA Technique M is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. EA Technique M can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, EA Technique M can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that EA Technique M operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of EA Technique M has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help EA Technique M to build a more holistic ecosystem for EA Technique M products in the Water Transportation 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 Water Transportation industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for EA Technique M in the Water Transportation industry. Now EA Technique M can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects EA Technique M 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 Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. EA Technique M 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. EA Technique M 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

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Threats EA Technique M External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of EA Technique M are -

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

– EA Technique M 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– EA Technique M has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, EA Technique M needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.

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 EA Technique M business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, EA Technique M 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 EA Technique M prominent markets.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. EA Technique M can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 EA Technique M.

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 EA Technique M in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline 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. EA Technique M 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on EA Technique M 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.

Increasing wage structure of EA Technique M

– 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 EA Technique M.

Environmental challenges

– EA Technique M 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. EA Technique M can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of EA Technique M Template, Example

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

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