Asia Poly (ASPY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Asia Poly (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Asia Poly is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, 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 Asia Poly can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Asia Poly, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Asia Poly
2. Improving business portfolio management of Asia Poly
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Asia Poly
Strengths of Asia Poly | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Asia Poly are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Asia Poly 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.
Analytics focus
– Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– Asia Poly is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Asia Poly has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Asia Poly have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Asia Poly is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This has provided Asia Poly 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
- Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Asia Poly emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Asia Poly in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Asia Poly has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Asia Poly to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Asia Poly has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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)
– Asia Poly has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Asia Poly staying ahead in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Asia Poly digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Asia Poly 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Asia Poly is one of the most innovative firm in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Asia Poly in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Asia Poly | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Asia Poly are -
High dependence on Asia Poly ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Asia Poly still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Asia Poly has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Asia Poly has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry over the last five years. Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Asia Poly can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Asia Poly is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Asia Poly products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Asia Poly needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Asia Poly, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Asia Poly needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Asia Poly strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, Asia Poly 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, Asia Poly is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Asia Poly to provide better information regarding Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Asia Poly Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Asia Poly are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Asia Poly 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.
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. Asia Poly can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Asia Poly in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Asia Poly in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. Now Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Asia Poly 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Asia Poly can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Asia Poly operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Asia Poly can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Asia Poly to increase its market reach. Asia Poly 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Asia Poly can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Asia Poly can develop new processes and procedures in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Asia Poly 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.
Threats Asia Poly External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Asia Poly are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Asia Poly 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Increasing wage structure of Asia Poly
– 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 Asia Poly.
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. Asia Poly 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry are lowering. It can presents Asia Poly with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Asia Poly 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Asia Poly can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Asia Poly in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. The Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly 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.
Environmental challenges
– Asia Poly 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. Asia Poly can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Asia Poly business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Asia Poly is facing in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Asia Poly Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly 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 Asia Poly needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.