SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Azorean Aquatic Tech (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Azorean Aquatic Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Azorean Aquatic Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Azorean Aquatic Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Azorean Aquatic Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Azorean Aquatic Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Azorean Aquatic Tech
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 Azorean Aquatic Tech
Strengths of Azorean Aquatic Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Azorean Aquatic Tech are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Learning organization
- Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Azorean Aquatic Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of France 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Azorean Aquatic Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Azorean Aquatic Tech has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Azorean Aquatic Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
High brand equity
– Azorean Aquatic Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Azorean Aquatic Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Azorean Aquatic Tech is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Azorean Aquatic Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Azorean Aquatic Tech does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Azorean Aquatic Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Azorean Aquatic Tech in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Azorean Aquatic Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Weaknesses of Azorean Aquatic Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Azorean Aquatic Tech are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Azorean Aquatic Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
High dependence on Azorean Aquatic Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Azorean Aquatic Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Azorean Aquatic Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Azorean Aquatic Tech, 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Azorean Aquatic Tech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Azorean Aquatic Tech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Azorean Aquatic Tech to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Azorean Aquatic Tech supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Azorean Aquatic Tech is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Azorean Aquatic Tech vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Azorean Aquatic Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Azorean Aquatic Tech are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Azorean Aquatic Tech can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Azorean Aquatic Tech in the industry. Now Azorean Aquatic Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Azorean Aquatic Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Azorean Aquatic Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Azorean Aquatic Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
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. Azorean Aquatic Tech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Azorean Aquatic Tech 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. Azorean Aquatic Tech 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, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Azorean Aquatic Tech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Azorean Aquatic Tech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Azorean Aquatic Tech products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Azorean Aquatic Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Azorean Aquatic Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Azorean Aquatic Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 wage structure of Azorean Aquatic Tech
– 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech.
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 Azorean Aquatic Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Azorean Aquatic Tech is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Azorean Aquatic Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Azorean Aquatic Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech 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 Azorean Aquatic Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.