Radiant (RLGT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Radiant (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Radiant is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Radiant

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Radiant can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Radiant, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Radiant 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Radiant can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Radiant
2. Improving business portfolio management of Radiant
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Radiant

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Strengths of Radiant | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Radiant are -

Training and development

– Radiant has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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

– Radiant is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation

– Radiant is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Transportation industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Radiant in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Radiant 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Radiant has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Radiant staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Radiant has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Radiant have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Organizational Resilience of Radiant

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Radiant does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Learning organization

- Radiant 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 Radiant is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Radiant emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Radiant in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry

– Radiant has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Radiant to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Radiant to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry

– Radiant is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Diverse revenue streams

– Radiant is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Radiant 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.

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Weaknesses of Radiant | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Radiant are -

Need for greater diversity

– Radiant 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Radiant has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Radiant should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Radiant is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Radiant needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Radiant can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Radiant is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Radiant 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.

Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Radiant 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Radiant is just above the Misc. Transportation 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Radiant, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Transportation 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Radiant strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Radiant 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, Radiant has high operating costs in the Misc. Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Radiant lucrative customers.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Radiant 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.

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Radiant Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Radiant are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Radiant is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Radiant can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Radiant 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. Radiant 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Radiant 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Radiant to increase its market reach. Radiant 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

– Radiant has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Radiant to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Radiant to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Radiant can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Radiant operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Radiant has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Radiant to build a more holistic ecosystem for Radiant products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Radiant can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Radiant in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Radiant 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 Radiant to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Radiant can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Radiant 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 Misc. Transportation industry.

Manufacturing automation

– Radiant can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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.

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Threats Radiant External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Radiant are -

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 Radiant in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Regulatory challenges

– Radiant 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Radiant 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Radiant may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation 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. Radiant 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Radiant 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 Misc. Transportation industry.

Increasing wage structure of Radiant

– 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 Radiant.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Radiant in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Radiant is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Radiant with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.

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. Radiant needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Radiant 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 Radiant prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Radiant Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Radiant 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 Radiant 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 Radiant 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 Radiant 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 Radiant needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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