Peer To Peer Network (PTOP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Peer To Peer Network (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Peer To Peer Network is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Peer To Peer Network
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Peer To Peer Network can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Peer To Peer Network, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Peer To Peer Network
2. Improving business portfolio management of Peer To Peer Network
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 Peer To Peer Network
Strengths of Peer To Peer Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Peer To Peer Network are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Peer To Peer Network 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Peer To Peer Network has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Peer To Peer Network staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Peer To Peer Network is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Peer To Peer Network
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Peer To Peer Network does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Peer To Peer Network in the sector have low bargaining power. Peer To Peer Network has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Peer To Peer Network to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Peer To Peer Network has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Peer To Peer Network to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Peer To Peer Network has one of the best training and development program in 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
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Learning organization
- Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Peer To Peer Network emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Peer To Peer Network in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Peer To Peer Network has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Peer To Peer Network to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Peer To Peer Network to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Peer To Peer Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Peer To Peer Network are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Peer To Peer Network, 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Peer To Peer Network is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Peer To Peer Network 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. Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Peer To Peer Network is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Peer To Peer Network vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Peer To Peer Network is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Peer To Peer Network needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Peer To Peer Network to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Peer To Peer Network strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Peer To Peer Network 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Peer To Peer Network 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Peer To Peer Network 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Peer To Peer Network needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Peer To Peer Network ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Peer To Peer Network still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Peer To Peer Network has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Peer To Peer Network Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Peer To Peer Network are -
Loyalty marketing
– Peer To Peer Network 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
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Peer To Peer Network can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Peer To Peer Network operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Peer To Peer Network can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Peer To Peer Network in the industry. Now Peer To Peer Network can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Peer To Peer Network has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Peer To Peer Network to build a more holistic ecosystem for Peer To Peer Network products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Peer To Peer Network has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Peer To Peer Network to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Peer To Peer Network to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Peer To Peer Network 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Peer To Peer Network 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.
Threats Peer To Peer Network External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Peer To Peer Network are -
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 Peer To Peer Network business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Peer To Peer Network is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network
– 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 Peer To Peer Network.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Peer To Peer Network has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Peer To Peer Network 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.
Environmental challenges
– Peer To Peer Network 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. Peer To Peer Network can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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. Peer To Peer Network needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Peer To Peer Network 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Peer To Peer Network may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of 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. Peer To Peer Network 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.
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 Peer To Peer Network.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Peer To Peer Network Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network 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 Peer To Peer Network needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.