Hill Intl (HIL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hill Intl (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hill Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hill Intl

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hill Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hill Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hill Intl 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 Hill Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hill Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hill Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hill Intl

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Strengths of Hill Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Hill Intl are -

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Learning organization

- Hill Intl 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 Hill Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hill Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Hill Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Hill Intl 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.

High brand equity

– Hill Intl has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hill Intl to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Hill Intl comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Hill Intl in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Hill Intl has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hill Intl to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Hill Intl 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Hill Intl is one of the leading players in the Construction Services 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 Construction Services industry

– Hill Intl has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hill Intl to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hill Intl to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Construction Services

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

Innovation driven organization

– Hill Intl is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.

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Weaknesses of Hill Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Hill Intl are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Hill Intl has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Hill Intl has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hill Intl should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Hill Intl 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 Construction Services industry.

Need for greater diversity

– Hill Intl 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Hill Intl needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hill Intl can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hill Intl is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Hill Intl 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Hill Intl 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Hill Intl is just above the Construction Services 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Hill Intl, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Hill Intl has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hill Intl lucrative customers.

Employees’ less understanding of Hill Intl strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hill Intl 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.

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Hill Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Hill Intl are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hill Intl 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hill Intl 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hill Intl in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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. Hill Intl can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hill Intl 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 Hill Intl to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hill Intl to increase its market reach. Hill Intl 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 Hill Intl 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 Construction Services industry.

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 Hill Intl 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

– Hill Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hill Intl in the Construction Services industry. Now Hill Intl can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Hill Intl 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Hill Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.

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Threats Hill Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Hill Intl are -

Environmental challenges

– Hill Intl 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. Hill Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Hill Intl has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hill Intl needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.

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 Hill Intl business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hill Intl in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.

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 Hill Intl in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Regulatory challenges

– Hill Intl 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 Construction Services industry regulations.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Hill Intl 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 Construction Services industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Hill Intl is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Hill Intl 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hill Intl 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 Hill Intl prominent markets.

Increasing wage structure of Hill Intl

– 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 Hill Intl.

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.

Learning curve for new practices

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hill Intl Template, Example

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

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