Macquarie Infrastructure Co (MIC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Macquarie Infrastructure Co (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Macquarie Infrastructure Co is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, technology disruption, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Macquarie Infrastructure Co

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

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Strengths of Macquarie Infrastructure Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Macquarie Infrastructure Co are -

Learning organization

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

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.

Training and development

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Successful track record of launching new products

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

High brand equity

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

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Weaknesses of Macquarie Infrastructure Co | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Macquarie Infrastructure Co are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Macquarie Infrastructure Co has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Employees’ less understanding of Macquarie Infrastructure Co strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Macquarie Infrastructure Co, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Transportation 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Macquarie Infrastructure Co has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Macquarie Infrastructure Co products

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Macquarie Infrastructure Co, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Macquarie Infrastructure Co has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

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Macquarie Infrastructure Co Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Macquarie Infrastructure Co are -

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 Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Macquarie Infrastructure Co to increase its market reach. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Macquarie Infrastructure Co has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Macquarie Infrastructure Co to build a more holistic ecosystem for Macquarie Infrastructure Co products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Macquarie Infrastructure Co in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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 Macquarie Infrastructure Co to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry

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

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Macquarie Infrastructure Co can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

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Threats Macquarie Infrastructure Co External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Macquarie Infrastructure Co are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Macquarie Infrastructure Co needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Macquarie Infrastructure Co with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Macquarie Infrastructure Co in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.

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. Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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.

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.

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 Macquarie Infrastructure Co in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Macquarie Infrastructure Co is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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 Misc. Transportation industry.

Increasing wage structure of Macquarie Infrastructure Co

– 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 Macquarie Infrastructure Co.

Environmental challenges

– Macquarie Infrastructure Co 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. Macquarie Infrastructure Co can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Macquarie Infrastructure Co can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Macquarie Infrastructure Co Template, Example

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

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