SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fse Engineering (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fse Engineering is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fse Engineering can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fse Engineering, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fse Engineering
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fse Engineering
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fse Engineering
Strengths of Fse Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fse Engineering are -
High brand equity
– Fse Engineering has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fse Engineering to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Fse Engineering is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fse Engineering in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Fse Engineering has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fse Engineering to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Fse Engineering has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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
- Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fse Engineering emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fse Engineering 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fse Engineering has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fse Engineering have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fse Engineering digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fse Engineering 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Fse Engineering has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fse Engineering to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fse Engineering to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Fse Engineering
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fse Engineering does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Fse Engineering is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Fse Engineering in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Fse Engineering is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Fse Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fse Engineering are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Fse Engineering 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 Construction Services industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fse Engineering, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fse Engineering has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fse Engineering has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Fse Engineering 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fse Engineering is just above the Construction 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Fse Engineering 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, Fse Engineering is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Fse Engineering to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fse Engineering has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Fse Engineering should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fse Engineering has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fse Engineering has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fse Engineering lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fse Engineering is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Fse Engineering needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fse Engineering to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Fse Engineering 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.
Fse Engineering Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fse Engineering are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fse Engineering 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 Construction Services industry.
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. Fse Engineering can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fse Engineering is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fse Engineering can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fse Engineering has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fse Engineering to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fse Engineering to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Fse Engineering can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction 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.
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 Fse Engineering 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fse Engineering 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. Fse Engineering 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fse Engineering in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fse Engineering 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fse Engineering to increase its market reach. Fse Engineering 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fse Engineering in the Construction Services industry. Now Fse Engineering can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Fse Engineering can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fse Engineering has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Fse Engineering to build a more holistic ecosystem for Fse Engineering products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Fse Engineering External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fse Engineering are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Fse Engineering with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fse Engineering 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 Construction Services industry.
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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fse Engineering has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fse Engineering needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fse Engineering is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Fse Engineering can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fse Engineering may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Fse Engineering
– 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 Fse Engineering.
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 Fse Engineering.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fse Engineering 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fse Engineering 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.
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. Fse Engineering 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fse Engineering Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering 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 Fse Engineering needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
