Pan Malaysia (PGKN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pan Malaysia (Malaysia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pan Malaysia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pan Malaysia

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

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

The strengths of Pan Malaysia are -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Pan Malaysia 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Pan Malaysia is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Pan Malaysia 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Pan Malaysia 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

High brand equity

– Pan Malaysia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Pan Malaysia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Pan Malaysia is one of the leading players in the Personal 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Pan Malaysia comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal 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.

Organizational Resilience of Pan Malaysia

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

Innovation driven organization

– Pan Malaysia is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.

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

The weaknesses of Pan Malaysia are -

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Pan Malaysia needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Pan Malaysia has high operating costs in the Personal Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Pan Malaysia lucrative customers.

Employees’ less understanding of Pan Malaysia strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Pan Malaysia 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Pan Malaysia 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Pan Malaysia 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 Personal Services industry.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Pan Malaysia 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Pan Malaysia has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal Services industry over the last five years. Pan Malaysia 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Pan Malaysia products

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

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Pan Malaysia 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Pan Malaysia, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal 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.

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

The opportunities of Pan Malaysia are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Increase in government spending

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pan Malaysia in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Pan Malaysia 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. Pan Malaysia 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.

Creating value in data economy

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

Loyalty marketing

– Pan Malaysia 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, Pan Malaysia 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.

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. Pan Malaysia 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, Pan Malaysia 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 Pan Malaysia to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Pan Malaysia in the Personal Services industry. Now Pan Malaysia 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 Pan Malaysia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Pan Malaysia 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.

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

The threats of Pan Malaysia are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Pan Malaysia 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 Personal Services industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Pan Malaysia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pan Malaysia needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.

Increasing wage structure of Pan Malaysia

– 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 Pan Malaysia.

Environmental challenges

– Pan Malaysia 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. Pan Malaysia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pan Malaysia 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 Pan Malaysia prominent markets.

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.

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 Pan Malaysia in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Regulatory challenges

– Pan Malaysia 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 Personal Services industry regulations.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Pan Malaysia with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pan Malaysia in Personal Services industry. The Personal 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.

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.

Easy access to finance

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

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Pan Malaysia 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pan Malaysia Template, Example

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

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