Singasia (8293) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Singasia (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Singasia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Singasia

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

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

The strengths of Singasia are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Singasia 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Singasia is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Innovation driven organization

– Singasia is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.

Superior customer experience

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

Analytics focus

– Singasia 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 Business Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Singasia 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Singasia in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Singasia has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Singasia to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Singasia has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Singasia 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.

Learning organization

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Singasia 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.

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

The weaknesses of Singasia are -

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Singasia 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Singasia 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 Business Services industry using digital technology.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Singasia 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 Singasia 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 Singasia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Singasia is planning to shift buying processes online.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Singasia is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Singasia needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Singasia to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Singasia 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. Singasia 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.

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 Singasia supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Singasia is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Singasia vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Skills based hiring in Business Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Singasia has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

Products dominated business model

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Singasia is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.

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

The opportunities of Singasia are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Singasia is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Singasia 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Singasia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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.

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

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Singasia can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Singasia 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 Singasia to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Singasia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Singasia 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Singasia can develop new processes and procedures in Business Services 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Singasia 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Singasia 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry

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

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 Singasia 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Singasia 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 Singasia 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 Singasia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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

The threats of Singasia are -

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Singasia 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

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

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 Singasia.

Shortening product life cycle

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

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. Singasia 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.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Singasia 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.

Environmental challenges

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

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Singasia in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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 Singasia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Singasia

– 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 Singasia.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Singasia Template, Example

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

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