SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Poseidon Concepts (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Poseidon Concepts is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Poseidon Concepts
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Poseidon Concepts can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Poseidon Concepts, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Poseidon Concepts
2. Improving business portfolio management of Poseidon Concepts
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 Poseidon Concepts
Strengths of Poseidon Concepts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Poseidon Concepts are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Poseidon Concepts 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Poseidon Concepts has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Poseidon Concepts 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Poseidon Concepts 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Poseidon Concepts is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Poseidon Concepts 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.
Analytics focus
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Poseidon Concepts has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Poseidon Concepts staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Poseidon Concepts digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Poseidon Concepts 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Poseidon Concepts in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Poseidon Concepts is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Poseidon Concepts 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Poseidon Concepts is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Poseidon Concepts | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Poseidon Concepts are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Poseidon Concepts has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Poseidon Concepts even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on Poseidon Concepts ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Poseidon Concepts still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Poseidon Concepts has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Poseidon Concepts supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Poseidon Concepts is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Poseidon Concepts vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Poseidon Concepts 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. Poseidon Concepts should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Poseidon Concepts 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Poseidon Concepts is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Poseidon Concepts to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Poseidon Concepts products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Poseidon Concepts needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Poseidon Concepts strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Poseidon Concepts 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Poseidon Concepts, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Poseidon Concepts 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.
Poseidon Concepts Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Poseidon Concepts are -
Buying journey improvements
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Poseidon Concepts 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Poseidon Concepts can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Poseidon Concepts to increase its market reach. Poseidon Concepts 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.
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. Poseidon Concepts can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Poseidon Concepts 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. Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Poseidon Concepts can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Poseidon Concepts operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
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 Poseidon Concepts in the industry. Now Poseidon Concepts can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Poseidon Concepts is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Poseidon Concepts 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.
Threats Poseidon Concepts External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Poseidon Concepts are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Poseidon Concepts is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
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 Poseidon Concepts.
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 Poseidon Concepts business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Poseidon Concepts needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Poseidon Concepts 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
– Poseidon Concepts has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Poseidon Concepts 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Poseidon Concepts with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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. Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts 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.
Increasing wage structure of Poseidon Concepts
– 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 Poseidon Concepts.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Poseidon Concepts 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Poseidon Concepts Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts 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 Poseidon Concepts needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.