Sutimco Int (SUTI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sutimco Int (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sutimco Int is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sutimco Int can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sutimco Int, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sutimco Int
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sutimco Int
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sutimco Int
Strengths of Sutimco Int | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sutimco Int are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sutimco Int in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Sutimco Int has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sutimco Int to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Financial Services industry
– Sutimco Int has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sutimco Int to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sutimco Int to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sutimco Int emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sutimco Int has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sutimco Int have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sutimco Int 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
– Sutimco Int is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Sutimco Int 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Sutimco Int is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sutimco Int in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Sutimco Int
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sutimco Int does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sutimco Int digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sutimco Int 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.
High brand equity
– Sutimco Int has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sutimco Int to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sutimco Int 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sutimco Int is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial 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.
Weaknesses of Sutimco Int | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sutimco Int are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sutimco Int has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sutimco Int lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sutimco Int, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Financial 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Sutimco Int needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sutimco Int is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sutimco Int 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sutimco Int is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Sutimco Int needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sutimco Int to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Sutimco Int ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sutimco Int still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sutimco Int has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sutimco Int has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sutimco Int should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Sutimco Int strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sutimco Int 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sutimco Int has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry over the last five years. Sutimco Int 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sutimco Int, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sutimco Int has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Sutimco Int Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sutimco Int are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sutimco Int 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. Financial Services industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Sutimco Int can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sutimco Int can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sutimco Int operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sutimco Int has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sutimco Int to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sutimco Int to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sutimco Int 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. Sutimco Int 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sutimco Int in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Sutimco Int 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, Sutimco Int is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sutimco Int can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sutimco Int can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sutimco Int 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sutimco Int 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.
Threats Sutimco Int External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sutimco Int are -
Regulatory challenges
– Sutimco Int 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. Financial Services industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Sutimco Int 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. Sutimco Int can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Sutimco Int in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Sutimco Int with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Financial Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sutimco Int has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sutimco Int needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial 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.
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. Sutimco Int needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Sutimco Int business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sutimco Int in Misc. Financial Services industry. The Misc. Financial 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sutimco Int can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sutimco Int 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. Financial Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sutimco Int 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sutimco Int 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. Financial Services 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. Sutimco Int 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sutimco Int Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int 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 Sutimco Int needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.