Freeze Tag (FRZT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Freeze Tag (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Freeze Tag is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Freeze Tag

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Freeze Tag can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Freeze Tag, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Freeze Tag 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Freeze Tag can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Freeze Tag
2. Improving business portfolio management of Freeze Tag
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Software & Programming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Freeze Tag

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Strengths of Freeze Tag | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Freeze Tag are -

Ability to lead change in Software & Programming

– Freeze Tag is one of the leading players in the Software & Programming industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Software & Programming industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Freeze Tag in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Freeze Tag

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Freeze Tag does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Digital Transformation in Software & Programming industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Freeze Tag digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Freeze Tag 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Freeze Tag 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Freeze Tag is present in almost all the verticals within the Software & Programming industry. This has provided Freeze Tag 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Freeze Tag is one of the most innovative firm in Software & Programming sector.

Strong track record of project management in the Software & Programming industry

– Freeze Tag is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Freeze Tag comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Software & Programming 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Freeze Tag has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Freeze Tag staying ahead in the Software & Programming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Freeze Tag in Software & Programming industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Freeze Tag has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Software & Programming industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Freeze Tag have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Analytics focus

– Freeze Tag 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 Software & Programming 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.

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Weaknesses of Freeze Tag | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Freeze Tag are -

High dependence on Freeze Tag ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Freeze Tag still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Software & Programming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Freeze Tag has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Freeze Tag has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Software & Programming industry over the last five years. Freeze Tag 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Freeze Tag strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Freeze Tag 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Freeze Tag products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Freeze Tag needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Freeze Tag needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Freeze Tag, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Software & Programming 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.

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 Freeze Tag supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Freeze Tag is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Freeze Tag vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Freeze Tag is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Software & Programming industry, but Freeze Tag needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Freeze Tag to focus more on services in the Software & Programming industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Freeze Tag, in the dynamic environment of Software & Programming industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Freeze Tag 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 Software & Programming industry, Freeze Tag 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Freeze Tag 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.

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Freeze Tag Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Freeze Tag are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Freeze Tag 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Freeze Tag 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Software & Programming industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Freeze Tag in the Software & Programming industry. Now Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Freeze Tag is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Freeze Tag can utilize new technology in the field of Software & Programming industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Software & Programming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Freeze Tag 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. Freeze Tag 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Freeze Tag 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Freeze Tag can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Software & Programming 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Freeze Tag has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Software & Programming sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Freeze Tag to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Freeze Tag to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Buying journey improvements

– Freeze Tag can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Software & Programming 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.

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. Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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Threats Freeze Tag External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Freeze Tag are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Freeze Tag in Software & Programming industry. The Software & Programming 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.

Increasing wage structure of Freeze Tag

– 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 Freeze Tag.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Software & Programming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Freeze Tag can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

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. Freeze Tag needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Software & Programming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Freeze Tag has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Software & Programming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Freeze Tag needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Software & Programming 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Freeze Tag 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.

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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Freeze Tag is facing in Software & Programming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Freeze Tag may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Software & Programming sector.

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 Freeze Tag business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Freeze Tag needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Software & Programming industry regulations.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Freeze Tag Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag 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 Freeze Tag needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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