Ap Alternative Units (APLVF) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ap Alternative Units (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ap Alternative Units is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ap Alternative Units
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ap Alternative Units can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ap Alternative Units, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ap Alternative Units
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ap Alternative Units
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 Ap Alternative Units
Strengths of Ap Alternative Units | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ap Alternative Units are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ap Alternative Units has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ap Alternative Units 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Ap Alternative Units has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ap Alternative Units to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ap Alternative Units to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ap Alternative Units 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.
Analytics focus
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ap Alternative Units in the sector have low bargaining power. Ap Alternative Units has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ap Alternative Units to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Ap Alternative Units has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ap Alternative Units to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ap Alternative Units has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ap Alternative Units staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Ap Alternative Units is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ap Alternative Units digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ap Alternative Units 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ap Alternative Units is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ap Alternative Units 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.
Weaknesses of Ap Alternative Units | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ap Alternative Units are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ap Alternative Units, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ap Alternative Units has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ap Alternative Units should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ap Alternative Units 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ap Alternative Units 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ap Alternative Units 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ap Alternative Units 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ap Alternative Units, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ap Alternative Units has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ap Alternative Units is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Ap Alternative Units needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ap Alternative Units 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, Ap Alternative Units is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ap Alternative Units to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ap Alternative Units Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ap Alternative Units are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ap Alternative Units is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ap Alternative Units 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.
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. Ap Alternative Units can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ap Alternative Units can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ap Alternative Units 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ap Alternative Units 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.
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. Ap Alternative Units 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. Ap Alternative Units 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ap Alternative Units 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ap Alternative Units to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ap Alternative Units can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ap Alternative Units operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Ap Alternative Units 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.
Threats Ap Alternative Units External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ap Alternative Units are -
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. Ap Alternative Units needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ap Alternative Units is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ap Alternative Units can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Ap Alternative Units
– 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 Ap Alternative Units.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ap Alternative Units has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ap Alternative Units needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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. Ap Alternative Units 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ap Alternative Units 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 industry regulations.
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.
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 Ap Alternative Units.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ap Alternative Units 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ap Alternative Units Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units 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 Ap Alternative Units needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.