Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – 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, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Perfect Shape Beauty Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech
Strengths of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is one of the leading players in the Personal 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
Analytics focus
– Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Personal 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Perfect Shape Beauty Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
High brand equity
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is just above the Personal 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Personal Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Perfect Shape Beauty Tech, in the dynamic environment of Personal Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Perfect Shape Beauty Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech are -
Buying journey improvements
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal Services industry. This can help Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Perfect Shape Beauty Tech products in the Personal Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Perfect Shape Beauty Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to increase its market reach. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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 Personal Services industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Perfect Shape Beauty Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Personal Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Personal Services industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Perfect Shape Beauty Tech is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Perfect Shape Beauty Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Perfect Shape Beauty Tech 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Personal Services sector.
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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Perfect Shape Beauty 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Perfect Shape Beauty Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty 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 Perfect Shape Beauty Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
