Memscap (MEMS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Semiconductors
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Memscap (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Memscap is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Memscap can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Memscap, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Memscap 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 Memscap can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Memscap
2. Improving business portfolio management of Memscap
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Semiconductors sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Memscap
Strengths of Memscap | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Memscap are -
Organizational Resilience of Memscap
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Memscap does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Memscap has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Memscap to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Memscap in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Memscap has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Memscap to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Semiconductors industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Memscap digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Memscap 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.
Learning organization
- Memscap 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 Memscap is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Memscap emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Memscap comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Semiconductors 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Memscap in Semiconductors industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Memscap is present in almost all the verticals within the Semiconductors industry. This has provided Memscap 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Memscap 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Memscap 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 lead change in Semiconductors
– Memscap is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Semiconductors industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Memscap in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Memscap has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Memscap staying ahead in the Semiconductors industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Memscap | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Memscap are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Memscap, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Semiconductors 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Memscap is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Semiconductors industry, but Memscap needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Memscap to focus more on services in the Semiconductors industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Memscap is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Memscap to provide better information regarding Semiconductors products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Memscap, in the dynamic environment of Semiconductors industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Memscap has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Semiconductors industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Memscap is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Semiconductors industry.
High dependence on Memscap ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Memscap still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Semiconductors industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Memscap has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Memscap 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Memscap strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Memscap 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Memscap 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 Semiconductors industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Memscap is just above the Semiconductors 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Memscap has high operating costs in the Semiconductors industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Memscap lucrative customers.
Memscap Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Memscap are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Semiconductors industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Memscap 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. Memscap 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Memscap 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 Memscap to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Semiconductors industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Memscap in the Semiconductors industry. Now Memscap can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Memscap 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Semiconductors industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Memscap 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, Memscap can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Memscap operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Semiconductors sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Memscap can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Memscap 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Memscap 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 Memscap to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Memscap has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Semiconductors sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Memscap to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Memscap to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Memscap can develop new processes and procedures in Semiconductors 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Memscap 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 Semiconductors industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Memscap 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.
Threats Memscap External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Memscap 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 Memscap in the Semiconductors sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Memscap may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Semiconductors sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Memscap 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 Semiconductors industry.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Memscap in Semiconductors industry. The Semiconductors 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.
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 Memscap business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Memscap 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.
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. Memscap 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Memscap is facing in Semiconductors sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Memscap 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 Memscap prominent markets.
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 Memscap.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Memscap has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Semiconductors industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Memscap needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Semiconductors 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. Memscap needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Semiconductors industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Memscap Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Memscap 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 Memscap 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 Memscap 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 Memscap 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 Memscap needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
