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UPP Holdings (AVAR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for UPP Holdings (Singapore)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , UPP Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of UPP Holdings


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that UPP Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the UPP Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of UPP Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of UPP Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Paper & Paper Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of UPP Holdings




Strengths of UPP Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of UPP Holdings are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of UPP Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Paper & Paper Products 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the UPP Holdings 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.

High brand equity

– UPP Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled UPP Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Training and development

– UPP Holdings 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.

Innovation driven organization

– UPP Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Paper & Paper Products sector.

Diverse revenue streams

– UPP Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Paper & Paper Products industry. This has provided UPP Holdings 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of UPP Holdings in Paper & Paper Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– UPP Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – UPP Holdings staying ahead in the Paper & Paper Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Ability to lead change in Paper & Paper Products

– UPP Holdings is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Paper & Paper Products industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled UPP Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Strong track record of project management in the Paper & Paper Products industry

– UPP Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of UPP Holdings in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. UPP Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps UPP Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– UPP Holdings 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 Paper & Paper Products industry. The technology infrastructure of Singapore 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.






Weaknesses of UPP Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of UPP Holdings are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

UPP Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Paper & Paper 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.

High dependence on UPP Holdings ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of UPP Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Paper & Paper Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though UPP Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Paper & Paper Products industry, UPP Holdings 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though UPP Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Paper & Paper Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. UPP Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of UPP Holdings is just above the Paper & Paper Products 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of UPP Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Paper & Paper Products industry, but UPP Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help UPP Holdings to focus more on services in the Paper & Paper Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, UPP Holdings 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 Paper & Paper Products industry using digital technology.

Lack of clear differentiation of UPP Holdings products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, UPP Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As UPP Holdings is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Paper & Paper Products industry in last five years.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, UPP Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help UPP Holdings to provide better information regarding Paper & Paper Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Skills based hiring in Paper & Paper Products industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at UPP Holdings 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.




UPP Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of UPP Holdings 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. UPP Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, UPP Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that UPP Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Paper & Paper Products sector.

Loyalty marketing

– UPP Holdings 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– UPP Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Paper & Paper Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled UPP Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help UPP Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at UPP Holdings 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 Paper & Paper Products industry.

Manufacturing automation

– UPP Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Paper & Paper Products sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects UPP Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for UPP Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Paper & Paper Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Paper & Paper Products industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for UPP Holdings in the Paper & Paper Products industry. Now UPP Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Paper & Paper Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. UPP Holdings 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. UPP Holdings 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for UPP Holdings 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.

Buying journey improvements

– UPP Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Paper & Paper 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– UPP Holdings 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.




Threats UPP Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of UPP Holdings are -

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Paper & Paper Products industry are lowering. It can presents UPP Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Paper & Paper Products 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.

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 UPP Holdings in the Paper & Paper Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing wage structure of UPP Holdings

– 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 UPP Holdings.

Consumer confidence and its impact on UPP Holdings 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 Paper & Paper Products 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. UPP Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Paper & Paper Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that UPP Holdings is facing in Paper & Paper Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings in Paper & Paper Products industry. The Paper & Paper Products 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, UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings prominent markets.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Paper & Paper Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. UPP Holdings 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

– UPP Holdings 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 Paper & Paper Products industry.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of UPP Holdings Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings 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 UPP Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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