SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Adaptive Plasma Tech (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Adaptive Plasma Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Adaptive Plasma Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Adaptive Plasma Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Adaptive Plasma Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Adaptive Plasma Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Adaptive Plasma Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Adaptive Plasma Tech
Strengths of Adaptive Plasma Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Adaptive Plasma Tech are -
Training and development
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Adaptive Plasma Tech is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in South Korea. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Korea. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Adaptive Plasma Tech in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Adaptive Plasma Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Adaptive Plasma Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Adaptive Plasma Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Adaptive Plasma Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Adaptive Plasma Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Adaptive Plasma Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Adaptive Plasma Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Adaptive Plasma Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Analytics focus
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Capital Goods industry. The technology infrastructure of South Korea 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Adaptive Plasma Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Adaptive Plasma Tech staying ahead in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Adaptive Plasma Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Adaptive Plasma Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Adaptive Plasma Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Adaptive Plasma Tech are -
Need for greater diversity
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Adaptive Plasma Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Adaptive Plasma Tech is just above the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Adaptive Plasma Tech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Adaptive Plasma Tech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Adaptive Plasma Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Adaptive Plasma Tech has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Adaptive Plasma Tech should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Adaptive Plasma Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Capital Goods industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry using digital technology.
Adaptive Plasma Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Adaptive Plasma Tech are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Adaptive Plasma Tech to increase its market reach. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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
– Adaptive Plasma Tech can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
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 Adaptive Plasma Tech 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Adaptive Plasma Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Adaptive Plasma Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Adaptive Plasma Tech 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, Adaptive Plasma Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Adaptive Plasma Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, Adaptive Plasma Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Adaptive Plasma Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
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. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Capital Goods industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Adaptive Plasma Tech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Adaptive Plasma Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Adaptive Plasma Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Adaptive Plasma Tech are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Adaptive Plasma Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Adaptive Plasma Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Adaptive Plasma Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Adaptive Plasma Tech 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. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
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 Adaptive Plasma Tech in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Adaptive Plasma Tech in Misc. Capital Goods industry. The Misc. Capital Goods 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 wage structure of Adaptive Plasma Tech
– 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Adaptive Plasma Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech 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 Adaptive Plasma Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
