Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oxford Square ELKS is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oxford Square ELKS
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oxford Square ELKS can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oxford Square ELKS, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oxford Square ELKS
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oxford Square ELKS
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 Oxford Square ELKS
Strengths of Oxford Square ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oxford Square ELKS are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Oxford Square ELKS comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Oxford Square ELKS has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Oxford Square ELKS to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Oxford Square ELKS to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS in the sector have low bargaining power. Oxford Square ELKS has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Oxford Square ELKS to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Oxford Square ELKS
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Oxford Square ELKS does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Oxford Square ELKS in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Oxford Square ELKS has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Oxford Square ELKS staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Oxford Square ELKS has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Oxford Square ELKS have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Oxford Square ELKS has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oxford Square ELKS to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Oxford Square ELKS 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 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Oxford Square ELKS is one of the leading players in the 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 Oxford Square ELKS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oxford Square ELKS are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Oxford Square ELKS products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Oxford Square ELKS needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Oxford Square ELKS needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Oxford Square ELKS is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Oxford Square ELKS needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Oxford Square ELKS to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Oxford Square ELKS has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Oxford Square ELKS, 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Oxford Square ELKS is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Oxford Square ELKS ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Oxford Square ELKS still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Oxford Square ELKS has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Oxford Square ELKS has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Oxford Square ELKS should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Oxford Square ELKS supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Oxford Square ELKS is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Oxford Square ELKS vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Oxford Square ELKS Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Oxford Square ELKS are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Oxford Square ELKS 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
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Oxford Square ELKS to increase its market reach. Oxford Square ELKS 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.
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 Oxford Square ELKS in the industry. Now Oxford Square ELKS can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
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. Oxford Square ELKS can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Oxford Square ELKS has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Oxford Square ELKS to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oxford Square ELKS products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Oxford Square ELKS 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 industry.
Threats Oxford Square ELKS External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Oxford Square ELKS are -
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
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Increasing wage structure of Oxford Square ELKS
– 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 Oxford Square ELKS.
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 Oxford Square ELKS business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Oxford Square ELKS 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.
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 Oxford Square ELKS.
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. Oxford Square ELKS can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Oxford Square ELKS in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Oxford Square ELKS is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Oxford Square ELKS 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 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Oxford Square ELKS has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Oxford Square ELKS 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oxford Square ELKS Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS 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 Oxford Square ELKS needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
