Monaker (MKGI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Monaker (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Monaker is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Monaker can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Monaker, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Monaker 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 Monaker can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Monaker
2. Improving business portfolio management of Monaker
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Monaker
Strengths of Monaker | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Monaker are -
Analytics focus
– Monaker 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 Personal 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.
Learning organization
- Monaker 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 Monaker is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Monaker emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Monaker is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Monaker is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Monaker has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Monaker staying ahead in the Personal 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 Monaker in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Monaker has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Monaker to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Monaker has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Monaker 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.
Training and development
– Monaker 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.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Monaker is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Monaker in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Monaker 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Monaker in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Monaker is one of the leading players in the Personal 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.
Weaknesses of Monaker | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Monaker are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Monaker 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.
Skills based hiring in Personal Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Monaker 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 Monaker ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Monaker still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Monaker has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Monaker needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Monaker can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Monaker is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Monaker 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 Personal Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Monaker has high operating costs in the Personal Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Monaker lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Monaker needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Monaker 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Monaker has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Monaker 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Monaker has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal Services industry over the last five years. Monaker 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.
Monaker Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Monaker are -
Manufacturing automation
– Monaker can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Monaker 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Monaker can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Monaker operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Monaker in the Personal Services industry. Now Monaker 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. Monaker can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Monaker can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Monaker 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Monaker can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Monaker 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 Monaker to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Monaker 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Monaker has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Monaker to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Monaker to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Monaker 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Monaker can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Monaker External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Monaker are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Monaker 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 Monaker prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Monaker has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Monaker needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.
Environmental challenges
– Monaker 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. Monaker can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
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 Monaker in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline 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 Monaker.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Monaker with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Monaker is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Monaker 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.
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. Monaker needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Monaker can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Monaker 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Monaker may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Monaker Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Monaker 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 Monaker 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 Monaker 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 Monaker 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 Monaker needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
