Lifebrandz (LIFE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lifebrandz (Singapore)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lifebrandz is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lifebrandz

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lifebrandz can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lifebrandz, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lifebrandz 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 Lifebrandz can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lifebrandz
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lifebrandz
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lifebrandz

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

The strengths of Lifebrandz are -

Training and development

– Lifebrandz has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.

Organizational Resilience of Lifebrandz

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

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lifebrandz digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lifebrandz 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 brand equity

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Lifebrandz in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Lifebrandz comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Activities 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Lifebrandz is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Lifebrandz has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Activities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Lifebrandz have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Learning organization

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Lifebrandz 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.

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

The weaknesses of Lifebrandz are -

Products dominated business model

– Even though Lifebrandz has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Activities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lifebrandz should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Lifebrandz is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Lifebrandz to provide better information regarding Recreational Activities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Need for greater diversity

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Lifebrandz, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Activities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lifebrandz has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Lifebrandz is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Activities industry, but Lifebrandz needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lifebrandz to focus more on services in the Recreational Activities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Lifebrandz has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Activities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Lifebrandz 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Lifebrandz 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 Recreational Activities industry using digital technology.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Activities industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Lifebrandz 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 Recreational Activities industry.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Lifebrandz has high operating costs in the Recreational Activities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lifebrandz lucrative customers.

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

The opportunities of Lifebrandz are -

Better consumer reach

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

Buying journey improvements

– Lifebrandz can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Activities 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lifebrandz is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lifebrandz can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

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 Lifebrandz 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Lifebrandz 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 Lifebrandz to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Activities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lifebrandz 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. Lifebrandz 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 Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lifebrandz can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Lifebrandz has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Lifebrandz to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lifebrandz to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Lifebrandz 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Lifebrandz can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Activities 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.

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

The threats of Lifebrandz are -

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 international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lifebrandz 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 Lifebrandz prominent markets.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Lifebrandz can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Lifebrandz.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Lifebrandz 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.

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 Lifebrandz in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline 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 Lifebrandz business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Activities industry are lowering. It can presents Lifebrandz with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Activities sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Lifebrandz 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Lifebrandz 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. Lifebrandz can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.

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. Lifebrandz 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.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Increasing wage structure of Lifebrandz

– 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 Lifebrandz.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lifebrandz Template, Example

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

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