Ambient Water (AWGI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Capital Goods
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ambient Water (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ambient Water is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ambient Water can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ambient Water, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ambient Water
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ambient Water
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ambient Water
Strengths of Ambient Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ambient Water are -
Ability to lead change in Misc. Capital Goods
– Ambient Water is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ambient Water in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ambient Water 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ambient Water has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ambient Water 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.
Training and development
– Ambient Water has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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
– Ambient Water is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ambient Water is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ambient Water does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ambient Water in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ambient Water has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ambient Water have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ambient Water in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Ambient Water has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ambient Water to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ambient Water emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ambient Water comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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 Ambient Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ambient Water are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Ambient Water needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ less understanding of Ambient Water strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ambient Water 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 dependence on Ambient Water ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ambient Water still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ambient Water has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ambient Water 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ambient Water has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ambient Water should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ambient Water 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. Capital Goods industry over the last five years. Ambient Water 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ambient Water, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ambient Water has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ambient Water products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ambient Water needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Ambient Water supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ambient Water is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ambient Water vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ambient Water is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ambient Water to provide better information regarding Misc. Capital Goods products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ambient Water 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. Capital Goods industry using digital technology.
Ambient Water Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ambient Water 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, Ambient Water can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ambient Water operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Capital Goods industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ambient Water can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Ambient Water can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ambient Water 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ambient Water in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Ambient Water can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ambient Water to increase its market reach. Ambient Water 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ambient Water can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ambient Water can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ambient Water has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ambient Water to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ambient Water to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ambient Water 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. Capital Goods industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Ambient Water 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Ambient Water External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ambient Water are -
Regulatory challenges
– Ambient Water 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. Capital Goods industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ambient Water is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Ambient Water
– 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 Ambient Water.
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ambient Water can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Capital Goods industry are lowering. It can presents Ambient Water with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ambient Water 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Ambient Water 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. Ambient Water can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
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. Ambient Water 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.
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 Ambient Water business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ambient Water may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ambient Water has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ambient Water needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ambient Water Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water 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 Ambient Water needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.