Widetech Malaysia Bhd (WIDE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Widetech Malaysia Bhd (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Widetech Malaysia Bhd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Widetech Malaysia Bhd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Widetech Malaysia Bhd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Widetech Malaysia Bhd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Widetech Malaysia Bhd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Widetech Malaysia Bhd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Widetech Malaysia Bhd
Strengths of Widetech Malaysia Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Widetech Malaysia Bhd are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Widetech Malaysia 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Learning organization
- Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Widetech Malaysia Bhd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Widetech Malaysia 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Widetech Malaysia Bhd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Widetech Malaysia Bhd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Widetech Malaysia Bhd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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)
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Widetech Malaysia Bhd staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Widetech Malaysia Bhd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Widetech Malaysia Bhd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Widetech Malaysia Bhd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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.
Weaknesses of Widetech Malaysia Bhd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Widetech Malaysia Bhd are -
High dependence on Widetech Malaysia Bhd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Widetech Malaysia Bhd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Widetech Malaysia Bhd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Widetech Malaysia 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Widetech Malaysia Bhd, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Widetech Malaysia Bhd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Widetech Malaysia Bhd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Widetech Malaysia Bhd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Widetech Malaysia 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry over the last five years. Widetech Malaysia 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Widetech Malaysia Bhd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Widetech Malaysia Bhd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Widetech Malaysia Bhd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Widetech Malaysia Bhd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Widetech Malaysia 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Widetech Malaysia Bhd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Widetech Malaysia Bhd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Widetech Malaysia Bhd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Widetech Malaysia Bhd are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Widetech Malaysia 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Widetech Malaysia 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Widetech Malaysia 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. Widetech Malaysia 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia 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.
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. Widetech Malaysia Bhd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Widetech Malaysia Bhd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Widetech Malaysia Bhd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Widetech Malaysia Bhd products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Widetech Malaysia Bhd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Widetech Malaysia Bhd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Widetech Malaysia 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Widetech Malaysia Bhd in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Widetech Malaysia Bhd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Widetech Malaysia 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Widetech Malaysia Bhd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Widetech Malaysia Bhd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Threats Widetech Malaysia Bhd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Widetech Malaysia Bhd are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Widetech Malaysia Bhd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd prominent markets.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Widetech Malaysia 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Widetech Malaysia Bhd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
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. Widetech Malaysia 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Widetech Malaysia Bhd 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
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. Widetech Malaysia Bhd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Widetech Malaysia Bhd is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Widetech Malaysia 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. Widetech Malaysia Bhd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Widetech Malaysia Bhd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia 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 Widetech Malaysia Bhd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.