Hulamin (HLMJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hulamin (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hulamin is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hulamin can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hulamin, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hulamin 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 Hulamin can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hulamin
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hulamin
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hulamin
Strengths of Hulamin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hulamin are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hulamin has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hulamin 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hulamin has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hulamin have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hulamin 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
– Hulamin 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The technology infrastructure of South Africa 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.
Learning organization
- Hulamin 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 Hulamin is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hulamin emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Hulamin comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Hulamin is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hulamin has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hulamin staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hulamin digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hulamin 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Hulamin is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hulamin in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Hulamin is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Hulamin has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hulamin to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hulamin to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Hulamin | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hulamin are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hulamin, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hulamin has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Hulamin, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Africa, Hulamin 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hulamin is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hulamin has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hulamin should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hulamin is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Hulamin needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hulamin to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hulamin has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry over the last five years. Hulamin 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Hulamin strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hulamin 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Hulamin 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hulamin needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hulamin can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hulamin is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Hulamin is just above the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Hulamin Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hulamin are -
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. Hulamin can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hulamin 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. Hulamin 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hulamin has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Hulamin to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hulamin products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Hulamin 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hulamin to increase its market reach. Hulamin 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hulamin 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hulamin in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hulamin 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Manufacturing automation
– Hulamin can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hulamin can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hulamin can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hulamin 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 Hulamin 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 Hulamin to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Hulamin External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hulamin are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hulamin can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Hulamin 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
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 Hulamin business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Hulamin 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hulamin has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hulamin needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hulamin 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
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 Hulamin
– 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 Hulamin.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Hulamin with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
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 Hulamin.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hulamin 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hulamin is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hulamin Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hulamin 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 Hulamin 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 Hulamin 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 Hulamin 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 Hulamin needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
