SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Smart-Core Holdings (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Smart-Core Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Smart-Core Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Smart-Core Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Smart-Core Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Smart-Core Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Smart-Core Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Smart-Core Holdings
Strengths of Smart-Core Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Smart-Core Holdings are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Smart-Core Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This has provided Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Organizational Resilience of Smart-Core Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Smart-Core Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Smart-Core Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Analytics focus
– Smart-Core Holdings 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Smart-Core Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Smart-Core Holdings in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Smart-Core Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Smart-Core Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Electronic Instr. & Controls
– Smart-Core Holdings is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Smart-Core Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Smart-Core Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Learning organization
- Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Smart-Core Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Smart-Core Holdings is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Smart-Core Holdings in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Smart-Core Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Smart-Core Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Smart-Core Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Smart-Core Holdings are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Smart-Core Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but Smart-Core Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Smart-Core Holdings to focus more on services in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Smart-Core Holdings has high operating costs in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Smart-Core Holdings lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Smart-Core Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Smart-Core Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Smart-Core Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Smart-Core Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Smart-Core Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Smart-Core Holdings don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Smart-Core Holdings 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Smart-Core Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Smart-Core Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Smart-Core Holdings is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Smart-Core Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Smart-Core Holdings to provide better information regarding Electronic Instr. & Controls products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Smart-Core Holdings has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Smart-Core Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Smart-Core Holdings are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Smart-Core Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Smart-Core Holdings 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.
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 Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Smart-Core Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Smart-Core Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Smart-Core Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Smart-Core Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Smart-Core Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Smart-Core Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Smart-Core Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Smart-Core Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Smart-Core Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Smart-Core Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Smart-Core Holdings in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Now Smart-Core Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Smart-Core Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Smart-Core Holdings are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Smart-Core Holdings 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Smart-Core Holdings 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. Smart-Core Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
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 Smart-Core Holdings in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Smart-Core Holdings in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Smart-Core Holdings 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Smart-Core Holdings 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
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. Smart-Core Holdings 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.
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 Smart-Core Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Smart-Core Holdings 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Smart-Core Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Smart-Core Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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. Smart-Core Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Smart-Core Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Smart-Core Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings 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 Smart-Core Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.