Purifloh (PO3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Purifloh (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Purifloh is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Purifloh

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Purifloh can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Purifloh, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Purifloh 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 Purifloh can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Purifloh
2. Improving business portfolio management of Purifloh
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Water Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Purifloh

---

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

The strengths of Purifloh are -

High brand equity

– Purifloh has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Purifloh to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Analytics focus

– Purifloh 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 Water Utilities 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.

Digital Transformation in Water Utilities industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Purifloh digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Purifloh 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.

Organizational Resilience of Purifloh

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Purifloh comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Utilities 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Purifloh 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.

Superior customer experience

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

Training and development

– Purifloh has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Purifloh 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

– Purifloh is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Utilities industry. This has provided Purifloh 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.

Learning organization

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

---

---

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

The weaknesses of Purifloh are -

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Purifloh has high operating costs in the Water Utilities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Purifloh lucrative customers.

Lack of clear differentiation of Purifloh products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Purifloh needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Purifloh 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 Water Utilities industry using digital technology.

Products dominated business model

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

Need for greater diversity

– Purifloh 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Purifloh, in the dynamic environment of Water Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Purifloh has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Australia, Purifloh needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Purifloh is just above the Water Utilities 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Purifloh is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Purifloh to provide better information regarding Water Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High dependence on Purifloh ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Purifloh still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Purifloh has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

---

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

The opportunities of Purifloh are -

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

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. Purifloh can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Buying journey improvements

– Purifloh can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Utilities 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 Purifloh 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 Purifloh to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Purifloh can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Purifloh 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Purifloh is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Purifloh can utilize new technology in the field of Water Utilities 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 Water Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Purifloh 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. Purifloh 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.

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 Purifloh 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Utilities industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Purifloh in the Water Utilities industry. Now Purifloh can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Purifloh 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.

---

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

The threats of Purifloh are -

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 Purifloh.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Purifloh 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 Water Utilities industry.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Regulatory challenges

– Purifloh 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 Water Utilities industry regulations.

Environmental challenges

– Purifloh 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. Purifloh can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Utilities industry.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Purifloh 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.

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.

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. Purifloh needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Purifloh has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Purifloh needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Utilities 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.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Purifloh 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 Water Utilities industry and other sectors.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

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

Barriers of entry lowering

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

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Purifloh Template, Example

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

--- ---