EP Manufacturing (EPMB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Manufacturers
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for EP Manufacturing (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , EP Manufacturing is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that EP Manufacturing can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the EP Manufacturing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of EP Manufacturing
2. Improving business portfolio management of EP Manufacturing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of EP Manufacturing
Strengths of EP Manufacturing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of EP Manufacturing are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of EP Manufacturing comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the EP Manufacturing 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– EP Manufacturing is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of EP Manufacturing in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– EP Manufacturing is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This has provided EP Manufacturing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– EP Manufacturing has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – EP Manufacturing staying ahead in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– EP Manufacturing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled EP Manufacturing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– EP Manufacturing 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
– EP Manufacturing is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Learning organization
- EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at EP Manufacturing emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– EP Manufacturing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For EP Manufacturing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. EP Manufacturing 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.
Weaknesses of EP Manufacturing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of EP Manufacturing are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of EP Manufacturing is just above the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Need for greater diversity
– EP Manufacturing 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of EP Manufacturing, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, EP Manufacturing has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract EP Manufacturing lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of EP Manufacturing strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of EP Manufacturing 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.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at EP Manufacturing 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at EP Manufacturing, in the dynamic environment of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. EP Manufacturing has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, EP Manufacturing 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, EP Manufacturing is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help EP Manufacturing to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Manufacturers products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though EP Manufacturing has some of the most successful models in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. EP Manufacturing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on EP Manufacturing ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of EP Manufacturing still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though EP Manufacturing has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
EP Manufacturing Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of EP Manufacturing are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. EP Manufacturing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for EP Manufacturing in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– EP Manufacturing 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. EP Manufacturing 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. EP Manufacturing 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for EP Manufacturing 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– EP Manufacturing has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled EP Manufacturing to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help EP Manufacturing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, EP Manufacturing is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. EP Manufacturing can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 EP Manufacturing 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, EP Manufacturing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– EP Manufacturing can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at EP Manufacturing 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats EP Manufacturing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of EP Manufacturing are -
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. EP Manufacturing 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– EP Manufacturing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, EP Manufacturing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
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 EP Manufacturing in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry are lowering. It can presents EP Manufacturing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– EP Manufacturing 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. EP Manufacturing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– EP Manufacturing 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. EP Manufacturing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, EP Manufacturing may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Regulatory challenges
– EP Manufacturing 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry regulations.
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 EP Manufacturing.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for EP Manufacturing in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of EP Manufacturing Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing 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 EP Manufacturing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
