Murray & Roberts Holdings (MURZY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Murray & Roberts Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Murray & Roberts Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Murray & Roberts Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Murray & Roberts Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Murray & Roberts Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Murray & Roberts Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Murray & Roberts Holdings
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 Murray & Roberts Holdings
Strengths of Murray & Roberts Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Murray & Roberts Holdings are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Murray & Roberts Holdings in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Murray & Roberts Holdings in the sector have low bargaining power. Murray & Roberts Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Murray & Roberts Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Murray & Roberts Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Murray & Roberts Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Murray & Roberts Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Murray & Roberts Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Murray & Roberts Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in
– Murray & Roberts Holdings is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Murray & Roberts Holdings staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Organizational Resilience of Murray & Roberts Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Murray & Roberts Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Murray & Roberts Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Murray & Roberts Holdings are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Murray & Roberts Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Murray & Roberts Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Murray & Roberts Holdings to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Murray & Roberts Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Murray & Roberts Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Murray & Roberts Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Murray & Roberts Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Murray & Roberts Holdings to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Murray & Roberts Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Murray & Roberts Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Murray & Roberts Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Murray & Roberts Holdings, 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.
Murray & Roberts Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Murray & Roberts Holdings are -
Loyalty marketing
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Murray & Roberts Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Murray & Roberts Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
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 Murray & Roberts Holdings in the industry. Now Murray & Roberts Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Murray & Roberts Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Murray & Roberts Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Murray & Roberts Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Murray & Roberts Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Murray & Roberts Holdings to increase its market reach. Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Murray & Roberts Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Murray & Roberts Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Threats Murray & Roberts Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Murray & Roberts Holdings are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Murray & Roberts Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Murray & Roberts Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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.
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
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Murray & Roberts Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Environmental challenges
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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. Murray & Roberts Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
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 Murray & Roberts Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Murray & Roberts Holdings 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Murray & Roberts Holdings is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Murray & Roberts Holdings.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Murray & Roberts Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings 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 Murray & Roberts Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.