PNE PCB Bhd (PNEB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Semiconductors
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for PNE PCB Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , PNE PCB Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
technology disruption, 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 PNE PCB Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the PNE PCB Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of PNE PCB Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of PNE PCB Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Semiconductors sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of PNE PCB Bhd
Strengths of PNE PCB Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of PNE PCB Bhd are -
High brand equity
– PNE PCB Bhd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled PNE PCB Bhd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– PNE PCB Bhd has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– PNE PCB Bhd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB Bhd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing PNE PCB Bhd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of PNE PCB Bhd in Semiconductors industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– PNE PCB Bhd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Semiconductors industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that PNE PCB 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of PNE PCB Bhd in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. PNE PCB Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps PNE PCB Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Semiconductors
– PNE PCB Bhd is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Semiconductors industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled PNE PCB Bhd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Semiconductors industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For PNE PCB Bhd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. PNE PCB 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 Semiconductors industry
– PNE PCB Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled PNE PCB Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Semiconductors industry. The sustainable margins have also helped PNE PCB Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– PNE PCB Bhd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Semiconductors industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of PNE PCB Bhd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of PNE PCB Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of PNE PCB Bhd are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at PNE PCB Bhd, in the dynamic environment of Semiconductors industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. PNE PCB Bhd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though PNE PCB Bhd has some of the most successful models in the Semiconductors industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. PNE PCB Bhd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Semiconductors industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at PNE PCB Bhd 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, PNE PCB Bhd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help PNE PCB Bhd to provide better information regarding Semiconductors products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that PNE PCB Bhd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Semiconductors industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at PNE PCB Bhd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as PNE PCB Bhd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, PNE PCB Bhd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on PNE PCB Bhd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of PNE PCB Bhd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Semiconductors industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though PNE PCB Bhd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of PNE PCB Bhd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of PNE PCB 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, PNE PCB 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 existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of PNE PCB Bhd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, PNE PCB Bhd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left PNE PCB Bhd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– PNE PCB Bhd 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.
PNE PCB Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of PNE PCB Bhd are -
Buying journey improvements
– PNE PCB Bhd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Semiconductors 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects PNE PCB Bhd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at PNE PCB 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 Semiconductors industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help PNE PCB Bhd to increase its market reach. PNE PCB 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for PNE PCB Bhd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Semiconductors industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB Bhd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Semiconductors industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. PNE PCB Bhd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, PNE PCB Bhd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. PNE PCB Bhd can utilize new technology in the field of Semiconductors industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB 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.
Loyalty marketing
– PNE PCB 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for PNE PCB 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Semiconductors industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. PNE PCB 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. PNE PCB 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.
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. PNE PCB Bhd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats PNE PCB Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of PNE PCB Bhd are -
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 PNE PCB Bhd.
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 PNE PCB Bhd in the Semiconductors sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB Bhd prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– PNE PCB 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. PNE PCB Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Semiconductors industry.
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. PNE PCB 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– PNE PCB Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Semiconductors industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, PNE PCB Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Semiconductors 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– PNE PCB Bhd 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 Semiconductors industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of PNE PCB Bhd
– 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 PNE PCB Bhd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that PNE PCB Bhd is facing in Semiconductors sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– PNE PCB Bhd 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Semiconductors industry are lowering. It can presents PNE PCB Bhd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Semiconductors sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of PNE PCB Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB 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 PNE PCB Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
