SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ocean Sky Intl (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ocean Sky Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ocean Sky Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ocean Sky Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ocean Sky Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ocean Sky Intl
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 Ocean Sky Intl
Strengths of Ocean Sky Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ocean Sky Intl are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Training and development
– Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Ocean Sky Intl is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Ocean Sky Intl is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ocean Sky Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ocean Sky Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ocean Sky Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ocean Sky Intl staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Ocean Sky Intl
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ocean Sky Intl does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ocean Sky Intl in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Ocean Sky Intl has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ocean Sky Intl to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ocean Sky Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ocean Sky Intl digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Weaknesses of Ocean Sky Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ocean Sky Intl are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ocean Sky Intl 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. Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ocean Sky Intl is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Ocean Sky Intl needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ocean Sky Intl to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Ocean Sky Intl needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ocean Sky Intl is just above the Construction 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.
High dependence on Ocean Sky Intl ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ocean Sky Intl, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ocean Sky Intl 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 Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ocean Sky Intl 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Ocean Sky Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ocean Sky Intl are -
Loyalty marketing
– Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ocean Sky Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ocean Sky Intl can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ocean Sky Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Ocean Sky Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ocean Sky Intl products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl 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. Ocean Sky Intl 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. Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ocean Sky Intl can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Ocean Sky Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ocean Sky Intl can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services 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.
Threats Ocean Sky Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ocean Sky Intl are -
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 Ocean Sky Intl in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ocean Sky Intl has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ocean Sky Intl 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. Ocean Sky Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ocean Sky Intl can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ocean Sky Intl 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Ocean Sky Intl
– 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 Ocean Sky Intl.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ocean Sky Intl 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.
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. Ocean Sky Intl 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ocean Sky Intl 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.
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 Ocean Sky Intl.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ocean Sky Intl 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ocean Sky Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl 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 Ocean Sky Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.