Mobile Appliance (87260) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electronic Instr. & Controls
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mobile Appliance (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mobile Appliance is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mobile Appliance can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mobile Appliance, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mobile Appliance
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mobile Appliance
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mobile Appliance
Strengths of Mobile Appliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mobile Appliance are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mobile Appliance has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mobile Appliance staying ahead in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mobile Appliance emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mobile Appliance 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Mobile Appliance comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Organizational Resilience of Mobile Appliance
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mobile Appliance does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mobile Appliance digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mobile Appliance 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Mobile Appliance is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Mobile Appliance is present in almost all the verticals within the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This has provided Mobile Appliance 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.
High brand equity
– Mobile Appliance has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mobile Appliance to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Mobile Appliance has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mobile Appliance has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mobile Appliance have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mobile Appliance 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.
Weaknesses of Mobile Appliance | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mobile Appliance are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mobile Appliance has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Mobile Appliance should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Mobile Appliance is just above the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mobile Appliance 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mobile Appliance is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mobile Appliance 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mobile Appliance needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mobile Appliance can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mobile Appliance is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Mobile Appliance, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electronic Instr. & Controls 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 dependence on Mobile Appliance ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mobile Appliance still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mobile Appliance has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mobile Appliance has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Mobile Appliance 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mobile Appliance is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but Mobile Appliance needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mobile Appliance to focus more on services in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Mobile Appliance Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mobile Appliance are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mobile Appliance has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mobile Appliance to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mobile Appliance to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mobile Appliance can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Mobile Appliance can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Mobile Appliance in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Now Mobile Appliance can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mobile Appliance 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
– Mobile Appliance can develop new processes and procedures in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Mobile Appliance to increase its market reach. Mobile Appliance 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mobile Appliance is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mobile Appliance can utilize new technology in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mobile Appliance 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mobile Appliance can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mobile Appliance operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Threats Mobile Appliance External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mobile Appliance are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mobile Appliance has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mobile Appliance needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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. Mobile Appliance 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mobile Appliance 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mobile Appliance is facing in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mobile Appliance may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Increasing wage structure of Mobile Appliance
– 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 Mobile Appliance.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mobile Appliance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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 Mobile Appliance in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electronic Instr. & Controls industry are lowering. It can presents Mobile Appliance with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
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. Mobile Appliance needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mobile Appliance Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance 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 Mobile Appliance needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
