Swee Hong (SWEE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Swee Hong (Singapore)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Swee Hong is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Swee Hong

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Swee Hong can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Swee Hong, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Swee Hong 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Swee Hong can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Swee Hong
2. Improving business portfolio management of Swee Hong
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 Swee Hong

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Strengths of Swee Hong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Swee Hong are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Swee Hong has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Swee Hong 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.

Organizational Resilience of Swee Hong

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Swee Hong does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Swee Hong comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Swee Hong 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Swee Hong 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.

High brand equity

– Swee Hong has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Swee Hong to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Swee Hong in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Swee Hong has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Swee Hong to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

- Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Swee Hong emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Swee Hong is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Swee Hong 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Swee Hong 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.

Analytics focus

– Swee Hong 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 Construction Services 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.

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Weaknesses of Swee Hong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Swee Hong are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Swee Hong 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. Swee Hong 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, Swee Hong 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Swee Hong has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

Employees’ less understanding of Swee Hong strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Swee Hong 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong lucrative customers.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Swee Hong 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.

High dependence on Swee Hong ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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 Swee Hong supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Swee Hong is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Swee Hong vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Swee Hong products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Swee Hong needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Swee Hong needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Swee Hong can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Swee Hong is planning to shift buying processes online.

Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Swee Hong 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.

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Swee Hong Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Swee Hong are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Swee Hong 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Swee Hong to increase its market reach. Swee Hong 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Swee Hong 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Swee Hong 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Swee Hong 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Loyalty marketing

– Swee Hong 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Swee Hong can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Swee Hong operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Swee Hong can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Swee Hong can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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 Swee Hong 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Swee Hong in the Construction Services industry. Now Swee Hong can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Swee Hong is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Swee Hong 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.

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Threats Swee Hong External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Swee Hong are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Swee Hong 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.

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 Swee Hong business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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 Swee Hong.

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.

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. Swee Hong needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing wage structure of Swee Hong

– 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 Swee Hong.

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. Swee Hong 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.

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 Swee Hong in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Swee Hong 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.

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. Swee Hong can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Swee Hong has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Swee Hong 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Swee Hong is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Swee Hong Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong 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 Swee Hong needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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