Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Safer Shot Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Safer Shot Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Safer Shot Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Safer Shot Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Safer Shot Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Aerospace & Defense sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Safer Shot Inc
Strengths of Safer Shot Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Safer Shot Inc are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Aerospace & Defense industry
– Safer Shot Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Safer Shot Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Aerospace & Defense industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Safer Shot Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Safer Shot Inc 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Safer Shot Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Aerospace & Defense 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Safer Shot Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Aerospace & Defense industry. This has provided Safer Shot Inc 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Safer Shot Inc is one of the most innovative firm in Aerospace & Defense sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Aerospace & Defense industry
– Safer Shot Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Safer Shot Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Safer Shot Inc in Aerospace & Defense industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Safer Shot Inc has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Safer Shot Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Safer Shot Inc staying ahead in the Aerospace & Defense industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Safer Shot Inc in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Safer Shot Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Safer Shot Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Safer Shot Inc 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.
Weaknesses of Safer Shot Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Safer Shot Inc are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Safer Shot Inc has some of the most successful models in the Aerospace & Defense industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Safer Shot Inc is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Safer Shot Inc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Safer Shot Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Safer Shot Inc to provide better information regarding Aerospace & Defense products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Safer Shot Inc is just above the Aerospace & Defense 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Safer Shot Inc, in the dynamic environment of Aerospace & Defense industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Safer Shot Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Safer Shot Inc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Aerospace & Defense industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Safer Shot Inc is one of the leading players in the Aerospace & Defense industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Aerospace & Defense industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Safer Shot Inc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Safer Shot Inc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Safer Shot Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Safer Shot Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Aerospace & Defense industry, but Safer Shot Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Safer Shot Inc to focus more on services in the Aerospace & Defense industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Safer Shot Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Safer Shot Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Aerospace & Defense industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Safer Shot Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Safer Shot Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Safer Shot Inc are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Safer Shot Inc 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.
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. Safer Shot Inc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Safer Shot Inc to increase its market reach. Safer Shot Inc 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Safer Shot Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Aerospace & Defense industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Safer Shot Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Aerospace & Defense sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Safer Shot Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Safer Shot Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Safer Shot Inc 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Safer Shot Inc 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 Aerospace & Defense industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Safer Shot Inc 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Safer Shot Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Safer Shot Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Aerospace & Defense sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Aerospace & Defense industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Safer Shot Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Safer Shot Inc to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Safer Shot Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Safer Shot Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Safer Shot Inc are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Safer Shot Inc is facing in Aerospace & Defense 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 Aerospace & Defense industry are lowering. It can presents Safer Shot Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Aerospace & Defense sector.
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.
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 Safer Shot Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Aerospace & Defense industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Safer Shot Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Safer Shot Inc 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Safer Shot Inc 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 Aerospace & Defense industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Safer Shot Inc 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Safer Shot Inc 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 Aerospace & Defense industry and other sectors.
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 Safer Shot Inc in the Aerospace & Defense sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Safer Shot Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Aerospace & Defense industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Safer Shot Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Aerospace & Defense 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 Safer Shot Inc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Safer Shot Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc 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 Safer Shot Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.