SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Acesian Partners Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Acesian Partners Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Acesian Partners Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Acesian Partners Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Acesian Partners Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Acesian Partners Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Acesian Partners Ltd
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 Acesian Partners Ltd
Strengths of Acesian Partners Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Acesian Partners Ltd are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Acesian Partners Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Acesian Partners Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Acesian Partners Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Acesian Partners 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Acesian Partners 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.
Training and development
– Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Acesian Partners Ltd in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Acesian Partners Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Acesian Partners Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Acesian Partners Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Acesian Partners Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Acesian Partners Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Acesian Partners Ltd 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
– Acesian Partners Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Acesian Partners Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Acesian Partners Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Acesian Partners 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.
High brand equity
– Acesian Partners Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Acesian Partners Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Acesian Partners Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Acesian Partners Ltd are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Acesian Partners Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Acesian Partners Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Acesian Partners 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Acesian Partners 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Acesian Partners 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 Construction Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Acesian Partners Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services 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 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 Acesian Partners Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Acesian Partners Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Acesian Partners Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Acesian Partners Ltd 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 Acesian Partners Ltd lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Acesian Partners Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Acesian Partners Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Acesian Partners Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Acesian Partners Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Acesian Partners Ltd to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Acesian Partners Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Acesian Partners Ltd are -
Loyalty marketing
– Acesian Partners 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Acesian Partners 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Acesian Partners 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Acesian Partners 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 Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Acesian Partners Ltd 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 Acesian Partners Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Acesian Partners Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Acesian Partners Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Acesian Partners 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 Construction Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Acesian Partners Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Acesian Partners Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Acesian Partners Ltd products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Acesian Partners Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Acesian Partners 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Acesian Partners Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Threats Acesian Partners Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Acesian Partners Ltd are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Acesian Partners 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 Construction Services sector.
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. Acesian Partners 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
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.
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 Acesian Partners Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners Ltd.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Acesian Partners 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Acesian Partners Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Acesian Partners Ltd 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Acesian Partners 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 Construction Services industry regulations.
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 Acesian Partners Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Acesian Partners Ltd is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Acesian Partners 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. Acesian Partners Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Acesian Partners Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners 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 Acesian Partners Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.