One Step Vending (KOSK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Communications Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for One Step Vending (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , One Step Vending is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that One Step Vending can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the One Step Vending, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of One Step Vending
2. Improving business portfolio management of One Step Vending
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Communications Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of One Step Vending
Strengths of One Step Vending | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of One Step Vending are -
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Services industry
– One Step Vending is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of One Step Vending in Communications Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at One Step Vending emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– One Step Vending has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of One Step Vending have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Communications Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For One Step Vending digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. One Step Vending 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of One Step Vending in the Services sector have low bargaining power. One Step Vending has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps One Step Vending to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– One Step Vending 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 Communications 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– One Step Vending has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. One Step Vending 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 brand equity
– One Step Vending has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled One Step Vending to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that One Step Vending 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of One Step Vending comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– One Step Vending is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Services industry. This has provided One Step Vending 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.
Weaknesses of One Step Vending | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of One Step Vending are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, One Step Vending has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Services industry over the last five years. One Step Vending 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
One Step Vending has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, One Step Vending has high operating costs in the Communications Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract One Step Vending lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of One Step Vending is just above the Communications 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, One Step Vending 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 Communications Services industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that One Step Vending needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at One Step Vending can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as One Step Vending is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of One Step Vending strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of One Step Vending 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As One Step Vending is one of the leading players in the Communications Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Services industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, One Step Vending has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, One Step Vending is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help One Step Vending to provide better information regarding Communications Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Communications Services industry, One Step Vending 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.
One Step Vending Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of One Step Vending are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, One Step Vending is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. One Step Vending can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, One Step Vending can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that One Step Vending operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Services sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– One Step Vending 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. One Step Vending can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for One Step Vending in the Communications Services industry. Now One Step Vending can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– One Step Vending 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for One Step Vending 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– One Step Vending has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled One Step Vending to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help One Step Vending to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help One Step Vending to increase its market reach. One Step Vending 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, One Step Vending 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.
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 One Step Vending 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.
Manufacturing automation
– One Step Vending can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications 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.
Threats One Step Vending External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of One Step Vending are -
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. One Step Vending needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. One Step Vending 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on One Step Vending 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 Communications Services industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– One Step Vending 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 Communications Services industry regulations.
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 One Step Vending business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that One Step Vending is facing in Communications Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for One Step Vending in Communications Services industry. The Communications 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– One Step Vending has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, One Step Vending needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications 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.
Increasing wage structure of One Step Vending
– 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 One Step Vending.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– One Step Vending 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.
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 One Step Vending in the Communications Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of One Step Vending Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending 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 One Step Vending needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
