SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BWX Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BWX Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BWX Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BWX Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BWX Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of BWX Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Personal & Household Prods. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of BWX Ltd
Strengths of BWX Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BWX Ltd are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– BWX Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BWX Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BWX Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal & Household Prods. industry
– BWX Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– BWX Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal & Household Prods. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of BWX Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of BWX Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BWX Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– BWX Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BWX Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BWX Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Analytics focus
– BWX Ltd is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BWX Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BWX Ltd staying ahead in the Personal & Household Prods. 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 BWX Ltd in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. BWX Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps BWX Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BWX Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that BWX Ltd 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
– BWX Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This has provided BWX Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of BWX Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BWX Ltd are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though BWX Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. BWX Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BWX Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry over the last five years. BWX Ltd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, BWX Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at BWX Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Personal & Household Prods. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BWX Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, BWX Ltd has high operating costs in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract BWX Ltd lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of BWX Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, BWX Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BWX Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BWX Ltd to provide better information regarding Personal & Household Prods. products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BWX Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal & Household Prods. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at BWX Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BWX Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BWX Ltd 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BWX Ltd is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of BWX Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BWX Ltd 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.
BWX Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BWX Ltd are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal & Household Prods. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. BWX Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, BWX Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BWX Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BWX Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal & Household Prods. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled BWX Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BWX Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal & Household Prods. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. BWX Ltd 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. BWX Ltd 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, BWX Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, BWX Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. BWX Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Personal & Household Prods. industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– BWX Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– BWX Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
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. BWX Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BWX Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– BWX Ltd 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help BWX Ltd to increase its market reach. BWX Ltd 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.
Threats BWX Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BWX Ltd are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on BWX Ltd 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for BWX Ltd in Personal & Household Prods. industry. The Personal & Household Prods. 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BWX Ltd 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.
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 BWX Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BWX Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BWX Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BWX Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Increasing wage structure of BWX Ltd
– 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 BWX Ltd.
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. BWX Ltd 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.
Environmental challenges
– BWX Ltd 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. BWX Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. 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. BWX Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal & Household Prods. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. BWX Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– BWX Ltd 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that BWX Ltd is facing in Personal & Household Prods. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BWX Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd 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 BWX Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.