SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nuvus Gro (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nuvus Gro is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nuvus Gro can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nuvus Gro, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nuvus Gro
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nuvus Gro
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nuvus Gro
Strengths of Nuvus Gro | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nuvus Gro are -
High brand equity
– Nuvus Gro has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nuvus Gro to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nuvus Gro 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nuvus Gro in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Nuvus Gro has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nuvus Gro to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nuvus Gro emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nuvus Gro has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nuvus Gro staying ahead in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Nuvus Gro comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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
– Nuvus Gro is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Nuvus Gro 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nuvus Gro in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Nuvus Gro is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nuvus Gro has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nuvus Gro 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Nuvus Gro is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Nuvus Gro has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Weaknesses of Nuvus Gro | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nuvus Gro are -
Skills based hiring in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nuvus Gro 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, Nuvus Gro 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. Capital Goods industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nuvus Gro has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nuvus Gro should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nuvus Gro, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Nuvus Gro needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Capital Goods industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Nuvus Gro can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nuvus Gro is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Nuvus Gro ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nuvus Gro still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Nuvus Gro has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Nuvus Gro 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Nuvus Gro 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Nuvus Gro has high operating costs in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Nuvus Gro lucrative customers.
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 Nuvus Gro supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Nuvus Gro is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nuvus Gro vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Nuvus Gro 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.
Nuvus Gro Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nuvus Gro are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nuvus Gro has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Nuvus Gro to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nuvus Gro products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Nuvus Gro 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Nuvus Gro 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
– Nuvus Gro can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
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. Nuvus Gro can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nuvus Gro is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nuvus Gro can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Nuvus Gro can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nuvus Gro 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Nuvus Gro 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
– Nuvus Gro can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nuvus Gro has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nuvus Gro to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nuvus Gro to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nuvus Gro 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.
Threats Nuvus Gro External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nuvus Gro are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nuvus Gro is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro prominent markets.
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.
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 Nuvus Gro business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Nuvus Gro.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nuvus Gro has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nuvus Gro needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Nuvus Gro 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
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
– Nuvus Gro 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. Capital Goods 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 Nuvus Gro in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nuvus Gro can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nuvus Gro 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.
Environmental challenges
– Nuvus Gro 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. Nuvus Gro can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nuvus Gro Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro 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 Nuvus Gro needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.