SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Delphi Tech (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Delphi Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Delphi Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Delphi Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Delphi Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Delphi Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Delphi Tech
Strengths of Delphi Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Delphi Tech are -
High brand equity
– Delphi Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Delphi Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Delphi Tech 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 Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Delphi Tech in Auto & Truck Parts industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Parts industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Delphi Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Delphi Tech 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Delphi Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Delphi Tech 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Delphi Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Delphi Tech is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Delphi Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Delphi Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Delphi Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Delphi Tech has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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
– Delphi Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Auto & Truck Parts industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Delphi Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Delphi Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Delphi Tech 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.
Learning organization
- Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Delphi Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Delphi Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Delphi Tech are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Delphi Tech 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Delphi Tech 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Delphi Tech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Delphi Tech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Delphi Tech has some of the most successful models in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Delphi Tech should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Delphi Tech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, but Delphi Tech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Delphi Tech to focus more on services in the Auto & Truck Parts industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Delphi Tech 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.
High dependence on Delphi Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Delphi Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Auto & Truck Parts industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Delphi Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Delphi Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Parts industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Delphi Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Delphi Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Delphi Tech supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Delphi Tech is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Delphi Tech vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Delphi Tech needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Delphi Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Delphi Tech are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech 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. Delphi Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Delphi Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Delphi Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Parts sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Delphi Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Delphi Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Delphi Tech to increase its market reach. Delphi Tech 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Delphi Tech 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Delphi Tech 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Auto & Truck Parts industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Delphi Tech 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. Delphi Tech 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Delphi Tech in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. Now Delphi Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Delphi Tech in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Delphi Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Delphi Tech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can help Delphi Tech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Delphi Tech products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Delphi Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Delphi Tech are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Parts industry are lowering. It can presents Delphi Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Environmental challenges
– Delphi Tech 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. Delphi Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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 Delphi Tech in the Auto & Truck Parts sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Delphi Tech
– 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 Delphi Tech.
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 Delphi Tech.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Delphi Tech 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Delphi Tech in Auto & Truck Parts industry. The Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Delphi Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech prominent markets.
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.
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. Delphi Tech 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 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. Delphi Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Delphi Tech is facing in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Delphi Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech 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 Delphi Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.