SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for ExeLED Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , ExeLED Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that ExeLED Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the ExeLED Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of ExeLED Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of ExeLED Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Furniture & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of ExeLED Holdings
Strengths of ExeLED Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of ExeLED Holdings are -
Digital Transformation in Furniture & Fixtures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For ExeLED Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. ExeLED Holdings 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– ExeLED Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – ExeLED Holdings staying ahead in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– ExeLED Holdings 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 Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Furniture & Fixtures industry
– ExeLED Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of ExeLED Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing ExeLED Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at ExeLED Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Furniture & Fixtures industry
– ExeLED Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled ExeLED Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped ExeLED Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of ExeLED Holdings in Furniture & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Furniture & Fixtures
– ExeLED Holdings is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– ExeLED Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Furniture & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of ExeLED Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of ExeLED Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Furniture & Fixtures 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 ExeLED Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ExeLED Holdings are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
ExeLED Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that ExeLED Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Furniture & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at ExeLED Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as ExeLED Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Furniture & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, ExeLED Holdings 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, ExeLED Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help ExeLED Holdings to provide better information regarding Furniture & Fixtures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– ExeLED Holdings 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of ExeLED Holdings is just above the Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, ExeLED Holdings 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As ExeLED Holdings is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, ExeLED Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, ExeLED Holdings has high operating costs in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract ExeLED Holdings lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at ExeLED Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Furniture & Fixtures industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. ExeLED Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
ExeLED Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of ExeLED Holdings are -
Buying journey improvements
– ExeLED Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Furniture & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. ExeLED Holdings 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. ExeLED Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Furniture & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. ExeLED Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, ExeLED Holdings 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.
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 ExeLED Holdings 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– ExeLED Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for ExeLED Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help ExeLED Holdings to increase its market reach. ExeLED Holdings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of ExeLED Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Furniture & Fixtures industry. This can help ExeLED Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for ExeLED Holdings products in the Furniture & Fixtures 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, ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects ExeLED Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– ExeLED Holdings 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, ExeLED Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that ExeLED Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Furniture & Fixtures sector.
Threats ExeLED Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of ExeLED Holdings are -
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 ExeLED Holdings in the Furniture & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Furniture & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. ExeLED Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. ExeLED Holdings 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– ExeLED Holdings 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. ExeLED Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that ExeLED Holdings is facing in Furniture & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of ExeLED Holdings
– 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 ExeLED Holdings.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for ExeLED Holdings in Furniture & Fixtures industry. The Furniture & Fixtures 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 ExeLED Holdings 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, ExeLED Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Furniture & Fixtures sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– ExeLED Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, ExeLED Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Furniture & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents ExeLED Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Furniture & Fixtures sector.
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. ExeLED Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Furniture & Fixtures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ExeLED Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings 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 ExeLED Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.