SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Qwest ELKS (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Qwest ELKS is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Qwest ELKS can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Qwest ELKS, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Qwest ELKS
2. Improving business portfolio management of Qwest ELKS
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 Qwest ELKS
Strengths of Qwest ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Qwest ELKS are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Qwest ELKS 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Qwest ELKS has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Qwest ELKS staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Qwest ELKS is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Qwest ELKS 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Qwest ELKS has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Qwest ELKS to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Qwest ELKS to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Qwest ELKS in the sector have low bargaining power. Qwest ELKS has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Qwest ELKS to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Qwest ELKS in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Qwest ELKS 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.
High brand equity
– Qwest ELKS has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Qwest ELKS to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Qwest ELKS emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Training and development
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Qwest ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Qwest ELKS are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Qwest ELKS 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Qwest ELKS 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 bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Qwest ELKS 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Qwest ELKS strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Qwest ELKS, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Qwest ELKS has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Qwest ELKS 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Qwest ELKS is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Qwest ELKS to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Qwest ELKS is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Qwest ELKS needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Qwest ELKS Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Qwest ELKS are -
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 Qwest ELKS in the industry. Now Qwest ELKS can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Qwest ELKS can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Qwest ELKS to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Qwest ELKS can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Qwest ELKS operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Qwest ELKS has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Qwest ELKS to build a more holistic ecosystem for Qwest ELKS products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Qwest ELKS 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Qwest ELKS is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Qwest ELKS 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Threats Qwest ELKS External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Qwest ELKS are -
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Qwest ELKS is facing in 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 industry are lowering. It can presents Qwest ELKS with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Qwest ELKS 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.
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. Qwest ELKS 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, Qwest ELKS 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS prominent markets.
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 Qwest ELKS.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Qwest ELKS in industry. The 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.
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 Qwest ELKS business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Qwest ELKS in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Qwest ELKS 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.
Increasing wage structure of Qwest ELKS
– 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 Qwest ELKS.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Qwest ELKS Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS 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 Qwest ELKS needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.