APFT (APFT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Schools
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for APFT (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , APFT is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that APFT can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the APFT, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which APFT 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 APFT can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of APFT
2. Improving business portfolio management of APFT
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of APFT
Strengths of APFT | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of APFT are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of APFT in the Services sector have low bargaining power. APFT has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps APFT to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– APFT has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– APFT has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – APFT staying ahead in the Schools industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of APFT
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing APFT does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– APFT is one of the most innovative firm in Schools sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of APFT in Schools industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– APFT has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Schools industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of APFT have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– APFT is present in almost all the verticals within the Schools industry. This has provided APFT 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.
Learning organization
- APFT 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 APFT is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at APFT emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– APFT 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 Schools 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of APFT comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High brand equity
– APFT has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled APFT to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of APFT | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of APFT are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, APFT has high operating costs in the Schools industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract APFT lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though APFT has some of the most successful models in the Schools industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. APFT should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, APFT 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Schools industry, APFT 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of APFT is just above the Schools 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, APFT is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help APFT to provide better information regarding Schools products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, APFT has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Schools industry over the last five years. APFT 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that APFT needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Schools industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at APFT can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as APFT is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, APFT 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.
Employees’ less understanding of APFT strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of APFT don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of APFT, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Schools 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.
APFT Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of APFT are -
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. APFT can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, APFT is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. APFT can utilize new technology in the field of Schools industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, APFT can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that APFT operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects APFT 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 APFT 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 Schools industry.
Buying journey improvements
– APFT can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Schools 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.
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 APFT 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of APFT has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Schools industry. This can help APFT to build a more holistic ecosystem for APFT products in the Schools industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for APFT 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for APFT in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Schools 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 APFT 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 APFT to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– APFT 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Schools industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. APFT can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats APFT External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of APFT are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that APFT is facing in Schools sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 APFT in the Schools sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of APFT
– 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 APFT.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Schools industry are lowering. It can presents APFT with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Schools sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– APFT 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.
Regulatory challenges
– APFT 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 Schools industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on APFT 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 Schools industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– APFT has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, APFT needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, APFT may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Schools sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Schools industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. APFT can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– APFT 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 Schools industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, APFT 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 APFT prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of APFT Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at APFT 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 APFT 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 APFT 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 APFT 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 APFT needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
