SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Limitless Venture (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Limitless Venture is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Limitless Venture
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Limitless Venture can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Limitless Venture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Limitless Venture
2. Improving business portfolio management of Limitless Venture
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 Limitless Venture
Strengths of Limitless Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Limitless Venture are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Limitless Venture 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.
Organizational Resilience of Limitless Venture
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Limitless Venture does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Limitless Venture has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Limitless Venture 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Limitless Venture is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Limitless Venture digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Limitless Venture 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Limitless Venture 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.
High brand equity
– Limitless Venture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Limitless Venture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Limitless Venture has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Limitless Venture to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Limitless Venture to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Limitless Venture in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Limitless Venture has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Limitless Venture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Limitless Venture emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Limitless Venture has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Limitless Venture 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Limitless Venture in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Limitless Venture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Limitless Venture are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Limitless Venture, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Limitless Venture has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Limitless Venture needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Limitless Venture 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.
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 Limitless Venture supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Limitless Venture is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Limitless Venture vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Limitless Venture 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. Limitless Venture should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Limitless Venture 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Limitless Venture 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Limitless Venture 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Limitless Venture, 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Limitless Venture is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Limitless Venture to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Limitless Venture Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Limitless Venture are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Limitless Venture can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Limitless Venture 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Limitless Venture 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Limitless Venture 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Limitless Venture is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Limitless Venture can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Limitless Venture 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Limitless Venture can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Limitless Venture in the Construction Services industry. Now Limitless Venture can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Limitless Venture are -
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.
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 Limitless Venture.
Increasing wage structure of Limitless Venture
– 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 Limitless Venture.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Limitless Venture is facing in Construction Services 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, Limitless Venture 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Limitless Venture can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Limitless Venture in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. Limitless Venture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Limitless Venture 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. Limitless Venture can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Limitless Venture 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Limitless Venture 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Limitless Venture 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Limitless Venture Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture 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 Limitless Venture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.