SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Amci Acquisition (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Amci Acquisition is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Amci Acquisition can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amci Acquisition, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amci 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 Amci Acquisition can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Amci Acquisition
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amci Acquisition
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Amci Acquisition
Strengths of Amci Acquisition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amci Acquisition are -
High brand equity
– Amci Acquisition has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Amci Acquisition to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Amci Acquisition has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Amci 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Amci Acquisition is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Amci Acquisition 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.
Organizational Resilience of Amci Acquisition
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Amci Acquisition does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Amci 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 Amci Acquisition is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Amci Acquisition emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Amci 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 Misc. Financial 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Amci Acquisition 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Amci Acquisition has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Amci Acquisition have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Amci Acquisition in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Amci Acquisition has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Amci Acquisition to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Amci Acquisition has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Amci Acquisition to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Amci Acquisition to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Amci Acquisition has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Amci Acquisition in Misc. Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Amci Acquisition | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Amci Acquisition are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Amci Acquisition needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Amci Acquisition ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Amci Acquisition still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Amci Acquisition has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Amci 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 Misc. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Amci 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 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 Amci Acquisition supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Amci Acquisition is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Amci Acquisition vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Amci Acquisition 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Amci Acquisition strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Amci Acquisition don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Amci Acquisition has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Financial 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Amci 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 Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Amci 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Amci Acquisition has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Amci Acquisition lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Amci Acquisition is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Amci Acquisition Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Amci Acquisition are -
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. Amci Acquisition can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Amci 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 Misc. Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Amci Acquisition can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Amci Acquisition 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Amci Acquisition has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Financial Services industry. This can help Amci Acquisition to build a more holistic ecosystem for Amci Acquisition products in the Misc. Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Amci Acquisition has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Amci Acquisition to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Amci Acquisition to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Amci Acquisition 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 Amci Acquisition to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Amci Acquisition can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Amci 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Amci Acquisition can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Amci Acquisition to increase its market reach. Amci Acquisition 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Amci Acquisition 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. Amci Acquisition 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Amci Acquisition can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Amci Acquisition operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Threats Amci Acquisition External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Amci Acquisition are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amci Acquisition has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amci Acquisition needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
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 Amci Acquisition business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Amci 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.
Environmental challenges
– Amci 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. Amci Acquisition can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Amci 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 Misc. Financial Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Amci Acquisition can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Amci 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.
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. Amci Acquisition needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Amci Acquisition with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
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 Amci Acquisition.
Regulatory challenges
– Amci Acquisition 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 Misc. Financial Services industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Amci Acquisition Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Amci 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 Amci 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 Amci 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 Amci 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 Amci Acquisition needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.