SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zicom Holdings Pvt (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zicom Holdings Pvt is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zicom Holdings Pvt
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zicom Holdings Pvt can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zicom Holdings Pvt, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zicom Holdings Pvt
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zicom Holdings Pvt
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zicom Holdings Pvt
Strengths of Zicom Holdings Pvt | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zicom Holdings Pvt are -
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zicom Holdings Pvt digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zicom Holdings Pvt
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zicom Holdings Pvt does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zicom Holdings Pvt is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zicom Holdings Pvt has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zicom Holdings Pvt have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zicom Holdings Pvt is one of the leading players in the Business 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zicom Holdings Pvt in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Zicom Holdings Pvt has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zicom Holdings Pvt to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zicom Holdings Pvt has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zicom Holdings Pvt staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Zicom Holdings Pvt in Business 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Zicom Holdings Pvt comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Zicom Holdings Pvt has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Weaknesses of Zicom Holdings Pvt | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zicom Holdings Pvt are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Zicom Holdings Pvt products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zicom Holdings Pvt has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Zicom Holdings Pvt should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zicom Holdings Pvt is just above the Business Services 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Zicom Holdings Pvt can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zicom Holdings Pvt is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Zicom Holdings Pvt is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Zicom Holdings Pvt to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zicom Holdings Pvt, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Zicom Holdings Pvt has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zicom Holdings Pvt is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zicom Holdings Pvt, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zicom Holdings Pvt has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Zicom Holdings Pvt Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zicom Holdings Pvt are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zicom Holdings Pvt has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Zicom Holdings Pvt to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zicom Holdings Pvt products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zicom Holdings Pvt is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zicom Holdings Pvt can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zicom Holdings Pvt can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zicom Holdings Pvt operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zicom Holdings Pvt can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zicom Holdings Pvt has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Zicom Holdings Pvt to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Business Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zicom Holdings Pvt to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zicom Holdings Pvt in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zicom Holdings Pvt to increase its market reach. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Threats Zicom Holdings Pvt External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zicom Holdings Pvt are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zicom Holdings Pvt may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
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. Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zicom Holdings Pvt is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Zicom Holdings Pvt business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Zicom Holdings Pvt can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Zicom Holdings Pvt 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.
Increasing wage structure of Zicom Holdings Pvt
– 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt.
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 Zicom Holdings Pvt.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Zicom Holdings Pvt with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
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 Zicom Holdings Pvt in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Business Services industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zicom Holdings Pvt Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt 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 Zicom Holdings Pvt needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.