Allstar Health Brands (ALST) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Allstar Health Brands (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Allstar Health Brands is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Allstar Health Brands
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Allstar Health Brands can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Allstar Health Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Allstar Health Brands
2. Improving business portfolio management of Allstar Health Brands
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 Allstar Health Brands
Strengths of Allstar Health Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Allstar Health Brands are -
Training and development
– Allstar Health Brands 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in
– Allstar Health Brands is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Allstar Health Brands in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Allstar Health Brands in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Allstar Health Brands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Allstar Health Brands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Allstar Health Brands digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Allstar Health Brands 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Allstar Health Brands 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Allstar Health Brands is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Allstar Health Brands 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Allstar Health Brands is one of the leading players in the 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Allstar Health Brands has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Allstar Health Brands staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Allstar Health Brands are -
High dependence on Allstar Health Brands ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Allstar Health Brands still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Allstar Health Brands has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Allstar Health Brands, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Allstar Health Brands has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Allstar Health Brands is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Allstar Health Brands is just above the 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Allstar Health Brands 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. Allstar Health Brands 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.
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 Allstar Health Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Allstar Health Brands is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Allstar Health Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Allstar Health Brands products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Allstar Health Brands needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Allstar Health Brands 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Allstar Health Brands is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Allstar Health Brands needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Allstar Health Brands to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Allstar Health Brands is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Allstar Health Brands to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Allstar Health Brands Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Allstar Health Brands are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Allstar Health Brands 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. Allstar Health Brands 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Allstar Health Brands in the industry. Now Allstar Health Brands 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, Allstar Health Brands 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Allstar Health Brands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Allstar Health Brands 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Allstar Health Brands 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.
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. Allstar Health Brands can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Allstar Health Brands 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 industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Allstar Health Brands can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Allstar Health Brands operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Allstar Health Brands 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Allstar Health Brands to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Allstar Health Brands 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.
Threats Allstar Health Brands External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Allstar Health Brands are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Allstar Health Brands 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 industry and other sectors.
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. Allstar Health Brands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Allstar Health Brands 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Allstar Health Brands is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Allstar Health Brands in the sector and impact the bottomline 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. Allstar Health Brands 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, Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands prominent markets.
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 Allstar Health Brands business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Allstar Health Brands 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.
Environmental challenges
– Allstar Health Brands 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. Allstar Health Brands can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Allstar Health Brands Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands 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 Allstar Health Brands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.