Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Foy Johnston Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Foy Johnston Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Foy Johnston Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Foy Johnston Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Foy Johnston Inc
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 Foy Johnston Inc
Strengths of Foy Johnston Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Foy Johnston Inc are -
Ability to lead change in
– Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Foy Johnston Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Foy Johnston Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Analytics focus
– Foy Johnston Inc 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 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.
Learning organization
- Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Foy Johnston Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Foy Johnston Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Foy Johnston Inc staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Foy Johnston Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Foy Johnston Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Foy Johnston Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Weaknesses of Foy Johnston Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Foy Johnston Inc are -
High dependence on Foy Johnston Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Foy Johnston Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Foy Johnston Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Foy Johnston Inc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Foy Johnston Inc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Foy Johnston Inc 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 industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Foy Johnston Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Foy Johnston Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Foy Johnston Inc to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Foy Johnston Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Foy Johnston Inc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Foy Johnston Inc is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Foy Johnston Inc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Foy Johnston Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Foy Johnston Inc are -
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. Foy Johnston Inc 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. Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Foy Johnston Inc in the industry. Now Foy Johnston Inc can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Foy Johnston Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Foy Johnston Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Foy Johnston Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Foy Johnston Inc 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 industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Foy Johnston Inc 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.
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. Foy Johnston Inc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Foy Johnston Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Foy Johnston Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Foy Johnston Inc 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. Foy Johnston Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Foy Johnston Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Foy Johnston Inc are -
Environmental challenges
– Foy Johnston Inc 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. Foy Johnston Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Increasing wage structure of Foy Johnston Inc
– 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 Foy Johnston Inc.
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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Foy Johnston Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Foy Johnston Inc 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.
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 Foy Johnston Inc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Foy Johnston Inc 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.
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. Foy Johnston Inc 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.
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 Foy Johnston Inc in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Foy Johnston Inc 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Foy Johnston Inc 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.
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. Foy Johnston Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Foy Johnston Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Foy Johnston Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc 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 Foy Johnston Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.