Hudson Global Inc (HSON) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hudson Global Inc (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hudson Global Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hudson Global Inc

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

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

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

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Strengths of Hudson Global Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Hudson Global Inc are -

Organizational Resilience of Hudson Global Inc

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

Learning organization

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

Digital Transformation in Business Services industry

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

Analytics focus

– Hudson Global 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 Business Services 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Hudson Global Inc in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Hudson Global Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hudson Global 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Hudson Global Inc is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Hudson Global 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.

Training and development

– Hudson Global Inc has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.

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Weaknesses of Hudson Global Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Hudson Global Inc are -

Skills based hiring in Business Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hudson Global Inc has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Hudson Global Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Hudson Global 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 Business Services industry.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hudson Global Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Hudson Global Inc 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Hudson Global Inc products

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

Employees’ less understanding of Hudson Global Inc strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hudson Global 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hudson Global Inc, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hudson Global Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High dependence on Hudson Global Inc ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Hudson Global Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hudson Global Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Hudson Global Inc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

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Hudson Global Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Hudson Global Inc are -

Loyalty marketing

– Hudson Global 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hudson Global 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. Hudson Global 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

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 Hudson Global Inc 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

– Hudson Global Inc can develop new processes and procedures in Business 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hudson Global Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hudson Global Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hudson Global Inc 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hudson Global Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Buying journey improvements

– Hudson Global Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Hudson Global Inc can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Hudson Global Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Hudson Global Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hudson Global Inc products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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Threats Hudson Global Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Hudson Global Inc are -

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hudson Global 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 Hudson Global Inc prominent markets.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Hudson Global Inc demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Business Services industry and other sectors.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hudson Global Inc in Business Services industry. The Business 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Hudson Global 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 Business Services industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Hudson Global Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hudson Global Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Hudson Global Inc 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 Business Services industry regulations.

Increasing wage structure of Hudson Global 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 Hudson Global Inc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Hudson Global Inc 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hudson Global 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 Business Services sector.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Hudson Global Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.

Environmental challenges

– Hudson Global 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. Hudson Global Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hudson Global Inc Template, Example

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

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