SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gentlemen’s Equity (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gentlemen’s Equity is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , 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 commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gentlemen’s Equity
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gentlemen’s Equity can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gentlemen’s Equity, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gentlemen’s Equity
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gentlemen’s Equity
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gentlemen’s Equity
Strengths of Gentlemen’s Equity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gentlemen’s Equity are -
Training and development
– Gentlemen’s Equity has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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
– Gentlemen’s Equity is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Organizational Resilience of Gentlemen’s Equity
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gentlemen’s Equity does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Gentlemen’s Equity is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gentlemen’s Equity has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Gentlemen’s Equity have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gentlemen’s Equity emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gentlemen’s Equity is one of the leading players in the industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gentlemen’s Equity in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gentlemen’s Equity has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gentlemen’s Equity staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gentlemen’s Equity digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Weaknesses of Gentlemen’s Equity | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gentlemen’s Equity are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gentlemen’s Equity is just above the 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gentlemen’s Equity needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Gentlemen’s Equity can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gentlemen’s Equity is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gentlemen’s Equity has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Gentlemen’s Equity lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Gentlemen’s Equity has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gentlemen’s Equity is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Gentlemen’s Equity needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gentlemen’s Equity to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Gentlemen’s Equity, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Gentlemen’s Equity has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Gentlemen’s Equity should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gentlemen’s Equity is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
High dependence on Gentlemen’s Equity ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Gentlemen’s Equity still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Gentlemen’s Equity has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Gentlemen’s Equity Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gentlemen’s Equity are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gentlemen’s Equity has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Gentlemen’s Equity to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gentlemen’s Equity products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gentlemen’s Equity 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, Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
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. Gentlemen’s Equity can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Gentlemen’s Equity can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Gentlemen’s Equity can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Gentlemen’s Equity can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
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 Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gentlemen’s Equity are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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 industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents Gentlemen’s Equity with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Environmental challenges
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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. Gentlemen’s Equity can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Increasing wage structure of Gentlemen’s Equity
– 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 Gentlemen’s Equity.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Gentlemen’s Equity in industry. The 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gentlemen’s Equity may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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 industry regulations.
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 Gentlemen’s Equity in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gentlemen’s Equity 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 industry and other sectors.
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. Gentlemen’s Equity needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gentlemen’s Equity 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gentlemen’s Equity Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity 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 Gentlemen’s Equity needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
