SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Starburst Holdings Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Starburst Holdings Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Starburst Holdings Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Starburst Holdings Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Starburst Holdings Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Starburst Holdings Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Starburst Holdings Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Starburst Holdings Ltd
Strengths of Starburst Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Starburst Holdings Ltd are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Starburst Holdings Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Starburst Holdings Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Starburst Holdings Ltd in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of Starburst Holdings Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Starburst Holdings Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Starburst Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Starburst Holdings Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Starburst Holdings Ltd 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
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Starburst Holdings Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Starburst Holdings Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Starburst Holdings Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Starburst Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Starburst Holdings Ltd are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Starburst Holdings Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Starburst Holdings Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Starburst Holdings Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Starburst Holdings Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Starburst Holdings Ltd has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Starburst Holdings Ltd lucrative customers.
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 Starburst Holdings Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Starburst Holdings Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Starburst Holdings Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Starburst Holdings Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Starburst Holdings Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Starburst Holdings Ltd to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Starburst Holdings Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Starburst Holdings Ltd 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, Starburst Holdings Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Starburst Holdings Ltd to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Starburst Holdings Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
High dependence on Starburst Holdings Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Starburst Holdings Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Starburst Holdings Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Starburst Holdings Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Starburst Holdings Ltd are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Starburst Holdings Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Starburst Holdings Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
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. Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Starburst Holdings Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Starburst Holdings Ltd products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Starburst Holdings Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Starburst Holdings Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Starburst Holdings Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Starburst Holdings Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
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 Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Starburst Holdings Ltd 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. Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Starburst Holdings Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Starburst Holdings Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Starburst Holdings Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Starburst Holdings Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Environmental challenges
– Starburst Holdings Ltd 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. Starburst Holdings Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Starburst Holdings Ltd is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
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 Starburst Holdings Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Starburst Holdings Ltd
– 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Starburst Holdings Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services 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. Starburst Holdings Ltd 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Starburst Holdings Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Starburst Holdings Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Starburst Holdings Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Starburst Holdings Ltd in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd 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 Starburst Holdings Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.