SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ballston Spa (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ballston Spa is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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 Ballston Spa can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ballston Spa, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ballston Spa
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ballston Spa
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 Ballston Spa
Strengths of Ballston Spa | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ballston Spa are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Ballston Spa has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ballston Spa to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ballston Spa to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ballston Spa in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ballston Spa 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.
High brand equity
– Ballston Spa has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ballston Spa to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Ballston Spa 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ballston Spa digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ballston Spa 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ballston Spa
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ballston Spa does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ballston Spa emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ballston Spa 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ballston Spa has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ballston Spa 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.
Ability to lead change in
– Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Ballston Spa is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Weaknesses of Ballston Spa | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ballston Spa are -
High dependence on Ballston Spa ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ballston Spa still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ballston Spa has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ballston Spa is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ballston Spa 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ballston Spa is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Ballston Spa 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ballston Spa 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. Ballston Spa 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 bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ballston Spa 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ballston Spa 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ballston Spa 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. Ballston Spa should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Ballston Spa needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Ballston Spa 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.
Ballston Spa Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ballston Spa are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ballston Spa 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ballston Spa has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Ballston Spa to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ballston Spa products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Ballston Spa can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ballston Spa 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ballston Spa can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Ballston Spa 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ballston Spa 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.
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 Ballston Spa in the industry. Now Ballston Spa can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ballston Spa is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ballston Spa 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ballston Spa to increase its market reach. Ballston Spa 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ballston Spa 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.
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. Ballston Spa 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. Ballston Spa 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.
Threats Ballston Spa External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ballston Spa are -
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. Ballston Spa 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.
Environmental challenges
– Ballston Spa 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. Ballston Spa can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa prominent markets.
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 Ballston Spa in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ballston Spa 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ballston Spa 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.
Increasing wage structure of Ballston Spa
– 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 Ballston Spa.
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. Ballston Spa needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ballston Spa may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Ballston Spa with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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.
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. Ballston Spa can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ballston Spa has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ballston Spa 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ballston Spa Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa 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 Ballston Spa needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.