SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Peoples Educational (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Peoples Educational is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Peoples Educational
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Peoples Educational can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Peoples Educational, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Peoples Educational
2. Improving business portfolio management of Peoples Educational
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Peoples Educational
Strengths of Peoples Educational | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Peoples Educational are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Peoples Educational 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.
High brand equity
– Peoples Educational has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Peoples Educational to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Peoples Educational in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Peoples Educational has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Peoples Educational to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Peoples Educational in Printing & Publishing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing & Publishing industry
– Peoples Educational has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Peoples Educational to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Peoples Educational to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Peoples Educational 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 recruit top talent
– Peoples Educational is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing & Publishing industry
– Peoples Educational is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Peoples Educational 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 Printing & Publishing 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.
Digital Transformation in Printing & Publishing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Peoples Educational digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Peoples Educational has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Organizational Resilience of Peoples Educational
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Peoples Educational does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Peoples Educational 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.
Weaknesses of Peoples Educational | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Peoples Educational are -
Need for greater diversity
– Peoples Educational 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Peoples Educational 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Peoples Educational 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 Printing & Publishing industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Printing & Publishing industry, Peoples Educational 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Peoples Educational has some of the most successful models in the Printing & Publishing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Peoples Educational should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Peoples Educational is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Peoples Educational needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing & Publishing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Peoples Educational can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Peoples Educational is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Peoples Educational 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Peoples Educational is just above the Printing & Publishing 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Peoples Educational is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Peoples Educational to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential 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 Peoples Educational supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Peoples Educational is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Peoples Educational vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Peoples Educational Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Peoples Educational are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational to increase its market reach. Peoples Educational 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Peoples Educational has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing & Publishing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Peoples Educational to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Peoples Educational to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Peoples Educational has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Peoples Educational to build a more holistic ecosystem for Peoples Educational products in the Printing & Publishing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Peoples Educational 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing & Publishing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Peoples Educational 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. Peoples Educational 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.
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 Peoples Educational 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Peoples Educational 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Peoples Educational can develop new processes and procedures in Printing & Publishing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Peoples Educational can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Peoples Educational operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing & Publishing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Peoples Educational in the Printing & Publishing industry. Now Peoples Educational can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing & Publishing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Peoples Educational can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Peoples Educational in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing & Publishing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Peoples Educational External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Peoples Educational are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Peoples Educational in Printing & Publishing industry. The Printing & Publishing 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Printing & Publishing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Peoples Educational can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Peoples Educational 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Peoples Educational 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 Printing & Publishing industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational prominent markets.
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. Peoples Educational 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.
Environmental challenges
– Peoples Educational 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. Peoples Educational can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry.
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, Peoples Educational may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing & Publishing sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Peoples Educational has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing & Publishing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Peoples Educational needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing & Publishing 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.
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 Peoples Educational.
Increasing wage structure of Peoples Educational
– 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 Peoples Educational.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Peoples Educational 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Peoples Educational Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational 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 Peoples Educational needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.