Optex Systems Holdings (OPXS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Scientific & Technical Instr.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Optex Systems Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Optex Systems Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Optex Systems Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Optex Systems Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Optex Systems Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Optex Systems Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Optex Systems Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Optex Systems Holdings
Strengths of Optex Systems Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Optex Systems Holdings are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– Optex Systems Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Optex Systems Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Optex Systems Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Optex Systems Holdings in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Optex Systems Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Optex Systems Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Scientific & Technical Instr.
– Optex Systems Holdings is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Optex Systems Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Optex Systems Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Optex Systems Holdings staying ahead in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 Optex Systems Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Optex Systems Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Optex Systems 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Optex Systems Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided Optex Systems 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Optex Systems Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Optex Systems Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Optex Systems Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Learning organization
- Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Optex Systems Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Optex Systems Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Optex Systems Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Optex Systems Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Optex Systems Holdings are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Optex Systems Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Optex Systems Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Optex Systems Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Optex Systems Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Optex Systems Holdings has high operating costs in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Optex Systems Holdings lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Optex Systems Holdings is just above the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Optex Systems Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but Optex Systems Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Optex Systems Holdings to focus more on services in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Optex Systems 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Optex Systems Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Optex Systems Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Optex Systems Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Optex Systems Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Optex Systems Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Optex Systems Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Optex Systems Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Optex Systems Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Optex Systems Holdings are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Optex Systems Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Optex Systems Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Optex Systems Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Optex Systems Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Optex Systems 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Optex Systems Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Optex Systems Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, Optex Systems Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Optex Systems Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Optex Systems Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
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 Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Optex Systems Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Optex Systems 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Optex Systems 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Optex Systems Holdings 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. Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Optex Systems Holdings 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 Optex Systems Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Optex Systems Holdings to increase its market reach. Optex Systems 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.
Threats Optex Systems Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Optex Systems 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Optex Systems 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Optex Systems Holdings is facing in Scientific & Technical Instr. 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, Optex Systems Holdings 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 Optex Systems Holdings prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Scientific & Technical Instr. industry are lowering. It can presents Optex Systems Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Increasing wage structure of Optex Systems Holdings
– 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 Optex Systems Holdings.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Optex Systems Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Optex Systems Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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
– Optex Systems 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. Optex Systems Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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 Optex Systems Holdings in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Optex Systems Holdings 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Optex Systems 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
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 Optex Systems Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Optex Systems Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems 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 Optex Systems Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.