SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Swissco Holdings Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Swissco Holdings Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Swissco Holdings Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Swissco Holdings Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Swissco Holdings Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Swissco 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Swissco Holdings Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Swissco Holdings Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Swissco Holdings Ltd
Strengths of Swissco Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Swissco Holdings Ltd are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Swissco Holdings Ltd in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Swissco Holdings Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Swissco Holdings Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Swissco Holdings Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Swissco Holdings Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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 recruit top talent
– Swissco Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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
– Swissco Holdings 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 Water Transportation 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Swissco 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.
Organizational Resilience of Swissco Holdings Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Swissco Holdings 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Swissco Holdings Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Swissco Holdings Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Swissco Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Swissco Holdings 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 Swissco 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.
High brand equity
– Swissco Holdings Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Swissco Holdings Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Swissco Holdings 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Swissco Holdings Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Swissco Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Swissco Holdings Ltd are -
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Swissco Holdings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Swissco Holdings Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Swissco Holdings Ltd is just above the Water Transportation 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Swissco Holdings Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Swissco Holdings Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Swissco Holdings Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Swissco Holdings Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Swissco Holdings Ltd 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Swissco Holdings Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Swissco Holdings Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Swissco Holdings Ltd 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Swissco Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Swissco 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 Water Transportation industry over the last five years. Swissco 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.
Swissco Holdings Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Swissco Holdings Ltd are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Swissco 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 Swissco 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 Swissco 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Swissco Holdings Ltd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Swissco Holdings Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Swissco Holdings Ltd to increase its market reach. Swissco Holdings 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Swissco Holdings Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Swissco Holdings Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Swissco 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. Swissco Holdings Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Swissco Holdings Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Swissco Holdings 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Swissco Holdings Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Swissco Holdings Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Swissco 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. Swissco 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Swissco 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Swissco Holdings Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Swissco Holdings Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Swissco 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd prominent markets.
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. Swissco 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Swissco Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Swissco Holdings Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Swissco Holdings Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Swissco Holdings Ltd is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Swissco Holdings Ltd in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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.
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.
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 Swissco Holdings Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Swissco 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. Swissco Holdings Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Swissco 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Swissco 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 Water Transportation 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Swissco Holdings Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Swissco 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 Swissco 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 Swissco 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 Swissco 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 Swissco Holdings Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.