Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Poly Culture Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Poly Culture Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Poly Culture Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Poly Culture Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Poly Culture Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Poly Culture Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Poly Culture Corp
Strengths of Poly Culture Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Poly Culture Corp are -
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Specialty) industry
– Poly Culture Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Poly Culture Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Poly Culture Corp is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Specialty) industry
– Poly Culture Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Poly Culture Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Poly Culture Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Poly Culture Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Specialty) industry. This has provided Poly Culture Corp 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Poly Culture Corp 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Poly Culture Corp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Poly Culture Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Poly Culture Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Poly Culture Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)
– Poly Culture Corp is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Poly Culture Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Poly Culture Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Poly Culture Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Poly Culture Corp in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Poly Culture Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Poly Culture Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Poly Culture Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Poly Culture Corp are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Poly Culture Corp is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Poly Culture Corp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Specialty) 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Poly Culture Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Poly Culture Corp, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Specialty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Poly Culture Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Poly Culture Corp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Poly Culture Corp 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Poly Culture Corp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Poly Culture Corp 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Poly Culture Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Poly Culture Corp to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Poly Culture Corp 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 Retail (Specialty) industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Poly Culture Corp has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Specialty) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Poly Culture Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Poly Culture Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Poly Culture Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Poly Culture Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Poly Culture Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Poly Culture Corp are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Poly Culture Corp in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Poly Culture Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Poly Culture Corp 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Poly Culture Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Poly Culture Corp can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Poly Culture Corp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Poly Culture Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Poly Culture Corp 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Poly Culture Corp 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Poly Culture Corp 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
– Poly Culture Corp can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Specialty) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Poly Culture Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Poly Culture Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Poly Culture Corp products in the Retail (Specialty) 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 Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Poly Culture Corp to increase its market reach. Poly Culture Corp 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Poly Culture Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Poly Culture Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Poly Culture Corp are -
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. Poly Culture Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Poly Culture Corp 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 Retail (Specialty) industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Poly Culture Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Poly Culture Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Poly Culture Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Environmental challenges
– Poly Culture Corp 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. Poly Culture Corp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry.
Increasing wage structure of Poly Culture Corp
– 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 Poly Culture Corp.
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. Poly Culture Corp 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Poly Culture Corp 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 Retail (Specialty) industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp prominent markets.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Poly Culture Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Poly Culture Corp 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Poly Culture Corp in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Poly Culture Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp 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 Poly Culture Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.