SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Alliance MMA (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Alliance MMA is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Alliance MMA can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Alliance MMA, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Alliance MMA 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 Alliance MMA can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Alliance MMA
2. Improving business portfolio management of Alliance MMA
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Alliance MMA
Strengths of Alliance MMA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Alliance MMA are -
Ability to lead change in Recreational Activities
– Alliance MMA is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Activities industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Alliance MMA in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Alliance MMA has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Alliance MMA staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Alliance MMA
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Alliance MMA does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Activities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Alliance MMA digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Alliance MMA 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Activities industry
– Alliance MMA 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 MMA 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Alliance MMA is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Alliance MMA 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
– Alliance MMA has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Activities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Alliance MMA have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Alliance MMA 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 MMA is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Alliance MMA emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Alliance MMA is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities 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 MMA in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Alliance MMA has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Alliance MMA to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Alliance MMA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Alliance MMA are -
Employees’ less understanding of Alliance MMA strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Alliance MMA 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Alliance MMA is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Alliance MMA is just above the Recreational Activities industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Alliance MMA 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 Recreational Activities industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Alliance MMA has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Activities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Alliance MMA should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Alliance MMA 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Alliance MMA, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Activities industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
High dependence on 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 Alliance MMA supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Alliance MMA is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Alliance MMA vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Alliance MMA needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Activities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Alliance MMA can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Alliance MMA is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Alliance MMA ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Alliance MMA still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Activities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Alliance MMA has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Alliance MMA products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Alliance MMA needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Alliance MMA Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Alliance MMA are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Alliance MMA can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Alliance MMA 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Alliance MMA 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Alliance MMA has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Activities industry. This can help Alliance MMA to build a more holistic ecosystem for Alliance MMA products in the Recreational Activities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Alliance MMA 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 MMA to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Alliance MMA 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Alliance MMA can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Activities industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Alliance MMA can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Activities industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Activities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Alliance MMA in the Recreational Activities industry. Now Alliance MMA can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Alliance MMA has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Alliance MMA to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Alliance MMA to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Alliance MMA can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Alliance MMA in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Activities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Alliance MMA 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.
Threats Alliance MMA External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Alliance MMA are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Alliance MMA has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Activities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Alliance MMA needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Activities 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Alliance MMA 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Alliance MMA in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Alliance MMA may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Activities sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Alliance MMA is facing in Recreational Activities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Activities industry are lowering. It can presents Alliance MMA with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Activities sector.
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 MMA in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Alliance MMA
– 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 MMA.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Alliance MMA 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. Alliance MMA 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Alliance MMA 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Alliance MMA 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Alliance MMA Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Alliance MMA 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 MMA 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 MMA 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 MMA 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 MMA needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
