SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Patriot Scientific (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Patriot Scientific is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Patriot Scientific
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Patriot Scientific can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Patriot Scientific, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Patriot Scientific
2. Improving business portfolio management of Patriot Scientific
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Computer Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Patriot Scientific
Strengths of Patriot Scientific | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Patriot Scientific are -
Innovation driven organization
– Patriot Scientific is one of the most innovative firm in Computer Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Patriot Scientific in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Patriot Scientific has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Patriot Scientific to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Patriot Scientific has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Patriot Scientific have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Patriot Scientific 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.
Organizational Resilience of Patriot Scientific
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Patriot Scientific does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Patriot Scientific has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Patriot Scientific 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Patriot Scientific is one of the leading players in the Computer Services 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.
Ability to lead change in Computer Services
– Patriot Scientific is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Patriot Scientific in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Patriot Scientific is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Patriot Scientific 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.
Training and development
– Patriot Scientific has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Patriot Scientific in Computer Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Computer Services industry
– Patriot Scientific has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Patriot Scientific to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Computer Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Patriot Scientific to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Patriot Scientific | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Patriot Scientific are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Patriot Scientific, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Computer Services 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Patriot Scientific has some of the most successful models in the Computer Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Patriot Scientific should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Computer Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Patriot Scientific 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Patriot Scientific, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Patriot Scientific has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Patriot Scientific is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Patriot Scientific to provide better information regarding Computer Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Patriot Scientific has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Computer Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Patriot Scientific 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.
High dependence on Patriot Scientific ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Patriot Scientific still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Computer Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Patriot Scientific has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Patriot Scientific needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Patriot Scientific can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Patriot Scientific is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Patriot Scientific strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Patriot Scientific 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Patriot Scientific needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Patriot Scientific Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Patriot Scientific are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Computer Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Patriot Scientific in the Computer Services industry. Now Patriot Scientific can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Patriot Scientific to increase its market reach. Patriot Scientific 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Patriot Scientific 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.
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. Patriot Scientific can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Computer Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Patriot Scientific can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Patriot Scientific 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Patriot Scientific can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Patriot Scientific operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Services sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Patriot Scientific 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Patriot Scientific is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Patriot Scientific can utilize new technology in the field of Computer Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Patriot Scientific has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Computer Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Patriot Scientific to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Patriot Scientific to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Patriot Scientific 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
– Patriot Scientific can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Patriot Scientific External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Patriot Scientific are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Patriot Scientific has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Patriot Scientific needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Services 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.
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 Patriot Scientific business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Patriot Scientific
– 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 Patriot Scientific.
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. Patriot Scientific needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Patriot Scientific 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 Computer Services industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Patriot Scientific can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Patriot Scientific.
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 Patriot Scientific in the Computer Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Patriot Scientific 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 Computer Services industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Patriot Scientific in Computer Services industry. The Computer Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Patriot Scientific Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific 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 Patriot Scientific needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.