Planet.FR SA (ALPLA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Planet.FR SA (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Planet.FR SA is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Planet.FR SA

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Planet.FR SA can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Planet.FR SA, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Planet.FR SA 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Planet.FR SA can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Planet.FR SA
2. Improving business portfolio management of Planet.FR SA
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Planet.FR SA

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Strengths of Planet.FR SA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Planet.FR SA are -

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Planet.FR SA 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

– Planet.FR SA is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Diverse revenue streams

– Planet.FR SA is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Planet.FR SA 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.

Digital Transformation in Business Services industry

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Planet.FR SA in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Planet.FR SA has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Planet.FR SA staying ahead in the Business Services 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 Planet.FR SA in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Planet.FR SA has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Planet.FR SA to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry

– Planet.FR SA has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Planet.FR SA to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Planet.FR SA to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Planet.FR SA comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.

Organizational Resilience of Planet.FR SA

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

Ability to lead change in Business Services

– Planet.FR SA is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Planet.FR SA in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Planet.FR SA 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.

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Weaknesses of Planet.FR SA | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Planet.FR SA are -

Lack of clear differentiation of Planet.FR SA products

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

Aligning sales with marketing

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

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Planet.FR SA, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business 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.

High operating costs

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Planet.FR SA is just above the Business Services 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Planet.FR SA 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 Business Services industry.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Planet.FR SA has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Planet.FR SA 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 Planet.FR SA, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Planet.FR SA has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High dependence on Planet.FR SA ‘s star products

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

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of France, Planet.FR SA needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Need for greater diversity

– Planet.FR SA 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.

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Planet.FR SA Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Planet.FR SA are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Planet.FR SA 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 Planet.FR SA to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Planet.FR SA can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Planet.FR SA can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Planet.FR SA operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Planet.FR SA 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. Planet.FR SA 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Planet.FR SA has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Planet.FR SA to build a more holistic ecosystem for Planet.FR SA products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Planet.FR SA is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Planet.FR SA can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Planet.FR SA 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Planet.FR SA 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 Business Services industry.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Planet.FR SA 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Planet.FR SA 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.

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Threats Planet.FR SA External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Planet.FR SA are -

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Planet.FR SA can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Planet.FR SA 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Planet.FR SA 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 Planet.FR SA prominent markets.

Environmental challenges

– Planet.FR SA 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. Planet.FR SA can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Planet.FR SA 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 Business Services industry.

Regulatory challenges

– Planet.FR SA 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 Business Services industry regulations.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Planet.FR SA 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.

Increasing wage structure of Planet.FR SA

– 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 Planet.FR SA.

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 Planet.FR SA in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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 Planet.FR SA business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Planet.FR SA Template, Example

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

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