SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Alberton Acquisition (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Alberton Acquisition is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Alberton Acquisition
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Alberton Acquisition can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Alberton Acquisition, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Alberton Acquisition
2. Improving business portfolio management of Alberton Acquisition
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Alberton Acquisition
Strengths of Alberton Acquisition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Alberton Acquisition are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Alberton Acquisition has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Alberton Acquisition 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
– Alberton Acquisition has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Alberton Acquisition have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Alberton Acquisition
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Alberton Acquisition does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Alberton Acquisition 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 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Alberton Acquisition digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Alberton Acquisition 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.
Learning organization
- Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Alberton Acquisition emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Alberton Acquisition is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Alberton Acquisition comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Alberton Acquisition 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.
High brand equity
– Alberton Acquisition has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Alberton Acquisition to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Alberton Acquisition has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Alberton Acquisition staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Alberton Acquisition has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Weaknesses of Alberton Acquisition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Alberton Acquisition are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Alberton Acquisition has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Alberton Acquisition 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Alberton Acquisition needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Alberton Acquisition can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Alberton Acquisition is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Alberton Acquisition supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Alberton Acquisition is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Alberton Acquisition vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Alberton Acquisition products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Alberton Acquisition needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Alberton Acquisition 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 industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Alberton Acquisition is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Alberton Acquisition to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Alberton Acquisition has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Alberton Acquisition 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Alberton Acquisition has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Alberton Acquisition lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Alberton Acquisition 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 industry.
High dependence on Alberton Acquisition ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Alberton Acquisition still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Alberton Acquisition has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Alberton Acquisition Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Alberton Acquisition are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Alberton Acquisition can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Alberton Acquisition operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Alberton Acquisition 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Alberton Acquisition has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Alberton Acquisition to build a more holistic ecosystem for Alberton Acquisition products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Alberton Acquisition can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Alberton Acquisition can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Alberton Acquisition in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Alberton Acquisition 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Alberton Acquisition is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Alberton Acquisition can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Alberton Acquisition has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Alberton Acquisition to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Alberton Acquisition to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Alberton Acquisition can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Alberton Acquisition 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Alberton Acquisition 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
– Alberton Acquisition 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.
Threats Alberton Acquisition External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Alberton Acquisition are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Alberton Acquisition in industry. The 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.
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. Alberton Acquisition 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Alberton Acquisition 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. Alberton Acquisition can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Alberton Acquisition with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Alberton Acquisition is facing in 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, Alberton Acquisition may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Alberton Acquisition high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Alberton Acquisition in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Alberton Acquisition needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Alberton Acquisition 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 industry.
Increasing wage structure of Alberton Acquisition
– 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 Alberton Acquisition.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alberton Acquisition Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition 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 Alberton Acquisition needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
