SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Vietnam Industrial Invest (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Vietnam Industrial Invest is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Vietnam Industrial Invest
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Vietnam Industrial Invest can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vietnam Industrial Invest, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Vietnam Industrial Invest
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vietnam Industrial Invest
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Iron & Steel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Vietnam Industrial Invest
Strengths of Vietnam Industrial Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vietnam Industrial Invest are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Vietnam Industrial Invest comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Iron & Steel 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.
Digital Transformation in Iron & Steel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Vietnam Industrial Invest digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest in Iron & Steel industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Training and development
– Vietnam Industrial Invest has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Learning organization
- Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Vietnam Industrial Invest emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Vietnam Industrial Invest is one of the most innovative firm in Iron & Steel sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Iron & Steel industry
– Vietnam Industrial Invest has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vietnam Industrial Invest to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Iron & Steel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vietnam Industrial Invest to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Iron & Steel
– Vietnam Industrial Invest is one of the leading players in the Iron & Steel industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Iron & Steel industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Analytics focus
– Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Vietnam Industrial Invest is present in almost all the verticals within the Iron & Steel industry. This has provided Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Weaknesses of Vietnam Industrial Invest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Vietnam Industrial Invest are -
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 Vietnam Industrial Invest supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Vietnam Industrial Invest is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Vietnam Industrial Invest vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vietnam Industrial Invest has some of the most successful models in the Iron & Steel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Vietnam Industrial Invest should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Vietnam Industrial Invest products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Vietnam Industrial Invest needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Iron & Steel industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Vietnam Industrial Invest, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Iron & Steel 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Vietnam Industrial Invest is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Vietnam Industrial Invest to provide better information regarding Iron & Steel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Iron & Steel industry, Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Vietnam Industrial Invest still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Iron & Steel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Vietnam Industrial Invest has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Vietnam Industrial Invest has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Iron & Steel industry over the last five years. Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry using digital technology.
Vietnam Industrial Invest Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Vietnam Industrial Invest are -
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 Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Vietnam Industrial Invest in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Iron & Steel industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Vietnam Industrial Invest is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Vietnam Industrial Invest can utilize new technology in the field of Iron & Steel industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Iron & Steel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Vietnam Industrial Invest in the Iron & Steel industry. Now Vietnam Industrial Invest can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Vietnam Industrial Invest can develop new processes and procedures in Iron & Steel 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Vietnam Industrial Invest can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Iron & Steel 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Iron & Steel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Vietnam Industrial Invest 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. Vietnam Industrial Invest 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, Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Vietnam Industrial Invest 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vietnam Industrial Invest can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vietnam Industrial Invest can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vietnam Industrial Invest operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Iron & Steel sector.
Threats Vietnam Industrial Invest External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Vietnam Industrial Invest are -
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.
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.
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 Vietnam Industrial Invest in the Iron & Steel sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Vietnam Industrial Invest
– 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Vietnam Industrial Invest may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Iron & Steel sector.
Environmental challenges
– Vietnam Industrial Invest 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. Vietnam Industrial Invest can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Iron & Steel industry.
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 Vietnam Industrial Invest.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Iron & Steel industry are lowering. It can presents Vietnam Industrial Invest with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Iron & Steel sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Iron & Steel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Vietnam Industrial Invest can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Vietnam Industrial Invest is facing in Iron & Steel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Iron & Steel industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vietnam Industrial Invest Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest 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 Vietnam Industrial Invest needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.