TAS Offshore Bhd (TSOF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for TAS Offshore Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , TAS Offshore Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that TAS Offshore Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the TAS Offshore Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of TAS Offshore Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of TAS Offshore Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of TAS Offshore Bhd
Strengths of TAS Offshore Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of TAS Offshore Bhd are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of TAS Offshore Bhd in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. TAS Offshore Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps TAS Offshore Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– TAS Offshore Bhd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– TAS Offshore Bhd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled TAS Offshore Bhd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– TAS Offshore Bhd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. TAS Offshore 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– TAS Offshore Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled TAS Offshore Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped TAS Offshore Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– TAS Offshore Bhd has one of the best training and development program in Transportation industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of TAS Offshore Bhd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Innovation driven organization
– TAS Offshore Bhd is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Learning organization
- TAS Offshore Bhd 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 TAS Offshore Bhd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at TAS Offshore Bhd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of TAS Offshore Bhd in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– TAS Offshore Bhd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – TAS Offshore Bhd staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– TAS Offshore Bhd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of TAS Offshore Bhd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of TAS Offshore Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of TAS Offshore Bhd are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though TAS Offshore Bhd has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. TAS Offshore Bhd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– TAS Offshore 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of TAS Offshore Bhd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but TAS Offshore Bhd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help TAS Offshore Bhd to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, TAS Offshore 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, TAS Offshore Bhd 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 Water Transportation industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, TAS Offshore Bhd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of TAS Offshore Bhd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that TAS Offshore Bhd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at TAS Offshore Bhd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as TAS Offshore Bhd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, TAS Offshore 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 Water Transportation industry over the last five years. TAS Offshore 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.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at TAS Offshore 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.
High dependence on TAS Offshore Bhd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of TAS Offshore Bhd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though TAS Offshore Bhd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
TAS Offshore Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of TAS Offshore Bhd are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, TAS Offshore Bhd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that TAS Offshore Bhd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– TAS Offshore Bhd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled TAS Offshore Bhd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help TAS Offshore Bhd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. TAS Offshore 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, TAS Offshore Bhd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. TAS Offshore Bhd can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for TAS Offshore 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 Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore Bhd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– TAS Offshore 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.
Buying journey improvements
– TAS Offshore Bhd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help TAS Offshore Bhd to increase its market reach. TAS Offshore 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at TAS Offshore 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 Water Transportation industry.
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 TAS Offshore Bhd 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.
Threats TAS Offshore Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of TAS Offshore Bhd are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents TAS Offshore Bhd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
Regulatory challenges
– TAS Offshore 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on TAS Offshore 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. TAS Offshore Bhd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– TAS Offshore 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. TAS Offshore Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– TAS Offshore Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, TAS Offshore Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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 TAS Offshore Bhd in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, TAS Offshore Bhd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore Bhd prominent markets.
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. TAS Offshore 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for TAS Offshore Bhd in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of TAS Offshore Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore 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 TAS Offshore Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.