Iliad S A U (ILIAY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Iliad S A U (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Iliad S A U is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Iliad S A U can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Iliad S A U, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Iliad S A U
2. Improving business portfolio management of Iliad S A U
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 Iliad S A U
Strengths of Iliad S A U | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Iliad S A U are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Iliad S A U has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Iliad S A U 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Iliad S A U 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Iliad S A U has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Iliad S A U to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Iliad S A U to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Iliad S A U 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Iliad S A U comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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)
– Iliad S A U has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Iliad S A U staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Iliad S A U 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Iliad S A U digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Iliad S A U is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Iliad S A U in the sector have low bargaining power. Iliad S A U has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Iliad S A U to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Iliad S A U | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Iliad S A U are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Iliad S A U, 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Iliad S A U 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Iliad S A U has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Iliad S A U products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Iliad S A U needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Iliad S A U has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Iliad S A U lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Iliad S A U is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Iliad S A U needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Iliad S A U has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Iliad S A U 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.
High dependence on Iliad S A U ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Iliad S A U still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Iliad S A U has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Iliad S A U needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Iliad S A U can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Iliad S A U is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Iliad S A U 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.
Iliad S A U Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Iliad S A U are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Iliad S A U can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Iliad S A U can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
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 Iliad S A U 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Iliad S A U 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Iliad S A U is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Iliad S A U 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Iliad S A U 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Iliad S A U in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Iliad S A U 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 industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Iliad S A U in the industry. Now Iliad S A U can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Iliad S A U can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Iliad S A U can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Iliad S A U can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Iliad S A U operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Iliad S A U 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.
Threats Iliad S A U External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Iliad S A U are -
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. Iliad S A U 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Iliad S A U 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.
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.
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. Iliad S A U needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Iliad S A U 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, Iliad S A U 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Iliad S A U 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 industry regulations.
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 Iliad S A U.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Iliad S A U 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Iliad S A U is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Iliad S A U 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 industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Iliad S A U
– 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 Iliad S A U.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Iliad S A U Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U 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 Iliad S A U needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.