Alliance Creative Gr (ACGX) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Alliance Creative Gr (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Alliance Creative Gr is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Alliance Creative Gr

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

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Strengths of Alliance Creative Gr | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Alliance Creative Gr are -

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

– Alliance Creative Gr is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Training and development

– Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry

– Alliance Creative Gr has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Alliance Creative Gr to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Alliance Creative Gr to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Alliance Creative Gr in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Ability to lead change in Business Services

– Alliance Creative Gr is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Alliance Creative Gr in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Alliance Creative Gr comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Alliance Creative Gr is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Analytics focus

– Alliance Creative Gr 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 Business Services industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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

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

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Weaknesses of Alliance Creative Gr | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Alliance Creative Gr are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Alliance Creative Gr has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Alliance Creative Gr needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Alliance Creative Gr can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Alliance Creative Gr is planning to shift buying processes online.

Employees’ less understanding of Alliance Creative Gr strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Products dominated business model

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Alliance Creative Gr is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.

High dependence on Alliance Creative Gr ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Alliance Creative Gr still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Alliance Creative Gr has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High operating costs

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

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Alliance Creative Gr is just above the Business Services 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Alliance Creative Gr 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.

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Alliance Creative Gr Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Alliance Creative Gr are -

Better consumer reach

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Alliance Creative Gr in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Alliance Creative Gr 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 Business Services industry.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Alliance Creative Gr in the Business Services industry. Now Alliance Creative Gr can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Alliance Creative Gr 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. Alliance Creative Gr 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.

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. Alliance Creative Gr can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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 Alliance Creative Gr 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Alliance Creative Gr has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Alliance Creative Gr to build a more holistic ecosystem for Alliance Creative Gr products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Alliance Creative Gr 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.

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Threats Alliance Creative Gr External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Alliance Creative Gr are -

Increasing wage structure of Alliance Creative Gr

– 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 Alliance Creative Gr.

Regulatory challenges

– Alliance Creative Gr 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 Business Services industry regulations.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Alliance Creative Gr in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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.

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 Alliance Creative Gr.

Easy access to finance

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

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Alliance Creative Gr is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Alliance Creative Gr 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– Alliance Creative Gr 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. Alliance Creative Gr can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Alliance Creative Gr 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 Business Services industry.

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 Alliance Creative Gr in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Alliance Creative Gr may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services 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. Alliance Creative Gr needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alliance Creative Gr Template, Example

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

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