Superlon Holdings Bhd (SPLH) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Superlon Holdings Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Superlon Holdings Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Superlon Holdings Bhd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Superlon Holdings Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Superlon Holdings Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Superlon Holdings Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Superlon Holdings Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Superlon Holdings Bhd
Strengths of Superlon Holdings Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Superlon Holdings Bhd are -
Strong track record of project management in the Appliance & Tool industry
– Superlon Holdings 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Superlon Holdings Bhd is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Digital Transformation in Appliance & Tool industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Superlon Holdings Bhd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Appliance & Tool industry
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Superlon Holdings Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Superlon Holdings Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Superlon Holdings Bhd in Appliance & Tool industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Superlon Holdings Bhd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Superlon Holdings Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Superlon Holdings Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Superlon Holdings Bhd has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Organizational Resilience of Superlon Holdings Bhd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Superlon Holdings Bhd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Superlon Holdings Bhd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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 brand equity
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Superlon Holdings Bhd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Appliance & Tool industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Superlon Holdings Bhd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Superlon Holdings Bhd 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.
Weaknesses of Superlon Holdings Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Superlon Holdings Bhd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Superlon Holdings Bhd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Superlon Holdings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Superlon Holdings Bhd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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, Superlon Holdings Bhd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Superlon Holdings Bhd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Superlon Holdings Bhd to provide better information regarding Appliance & Tool products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Superlon Holdings Bhd 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.
High dependence on Superlon Holdings Bhd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Superlon Holdings Bhd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Appliance & Tool industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Superlon Holdings Bhd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Superlon Holdings Bhd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Appliance & Tool industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Superlon Holdings 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 Appliance & Tool industry over the last five years. Superlon Holdings 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Appliance & Tool industry, Superlon Holdings 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Superlon Holdings Bhd has high operating costs in the Appliance & Tool industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Superlon Holdings Bhd lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Appliance & Tool industry using digital technology.
Superlon Holdings Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Superlon Holdings Bhd are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Appliance & Tool industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Superlon Holdings 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. Superlon Holdings 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Superlon Holdings 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Superlon Holdings 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Superlon Holdings Bhd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Appliance & Tool sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Superlon Holdings Bhd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Superlon Holdings Bhd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Superlon Holdings Bhd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Superlon Holdings Bhd to increase its market reach. Superlon Holdings Bhd 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Superlon Holdings Bhd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Superlon Holdings Bhd products in the Appliance & Tool industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Superlon Holdings Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Superlon Holdings Bhd are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Superlon Holdings 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 Appliance & Tool 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. Superlon Holdings 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Superlon Holdings Bhd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd.
Environmental challenges
– Superlon Holdings 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. Superlon Holdings Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry.
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 Superlon Holdings Bhd in the Appliance & Tool sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Superlon Holdings Bhd in Appliance & Tool industry. The Appliance & Tool 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Superlon Holdings Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Appliance & Tool industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Superlon Holdings Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Appliance & Tool industry are lowering. It can presents Superlon Holdings Bhd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Appliance & Tool 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Superlon Holdings Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings 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 Superlon Holdings Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
