SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lion Asiapac Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lion Asiapac Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lion Asiapac Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lion Asiapac Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lion Asiapac Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lion Asiapac Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Semiconductors sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lion Asiapac Ltd
Strengths of Lion Asiapac Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lion Asiapac Ltd are -
Learning organization
- Lion Asiapac Ltd 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lion Asiapac Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Semiconductors industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lion Asiapac Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lion Asiapac Ltd 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Lion Asiapac Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lion Asiapac Ltd in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Lion Asiapac Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lion Asiapac Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Lion Asiapac Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Lion Asiapac Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Lion Asiapac Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Semiconductors industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Lion Asiapac Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Semiconductors
– Lion Asiapac Ltd is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Semiconductors industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Lion Asiapac Ltd 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 Lion Asiapac 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lion Asiapac Ltd in Semiconductors industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lion Asiapac Ltd is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors 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.
Analytics focus
– Lion Asiapac Ltd 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 Semiconductors 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Semiconductors industry
– Lion Asiapac 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.
Weaknesses of Lion Asiapac Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lion Asiapac Ltd are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Semiconductors industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lion Asiapac Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lion Asiapac Ltd to provide better information regarding Semiconductors products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lion Asiapac Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Semiconductors industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Lion Asiapac Ltd is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Semiconductors industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Semiconductors industry, Lion Asiapac 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Lion Asiapac Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Semiconductors industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lion Asiapac Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Semiconductors industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lion Asiapac Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lion Asiapac Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Semiconductors industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lion Asiapac Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Lion Asiapac Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Lion Asiapac Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Semiconductors industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Lion Asiapac Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Lion Asiapac Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors industry over the last five years. Lion Asiapac 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.
Lion Asiapac Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lion Asiapac Ltd are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lion Asiapac Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lion Asiapac Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lion Asiapac Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Semiconductors industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Semiconductors industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lion Asiapac Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Semiconductors industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lion Asiapac 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. Lion Asiapac 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Lion Asiapac Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Lion Asiapac Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Semiconductors sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Lion Asiapac Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Semiconductors 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Lion Asiapac Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Lion Asiapac Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Semiconductors 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.
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 Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lion Asiapac Ltd to increase its market reach. Lion Asiapac Ltd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Lion Asiapac Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lion Asiapac Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd.
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 Lion Asiapac Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lion Asiapac 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
– Lion Asiapac 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. Lion Asiapac Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Semiconductors industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Lion Asiapac Ltd 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 Semiconductors industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lion Asiapac Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Semiconductors industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lion Asiapac Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Semiconductors 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.
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. Lion Asiapac Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Semiconductors industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Lion Asiapac Ltd is facing in Semiconductors sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Lion Asiapac 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 Semiconductors sector.
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 Lion Asiapac Ltd.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lion Asiapac Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac 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 Lion Asiapac Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.