SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CCT Fortis (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CCT Fortis is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CCT Fortis can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CCT Fortis, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CCT Fortis
2. Improving business portfolio management of CCT Fortis
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CCT Fortis
Strengths of CCT Fortis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CCT Fortis are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry
– CCT Fortis has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CCT Fortis to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CCT Fortis to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– CCT Fortis has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – CCT Fortis staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of CCT Fortis
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CCT Fortis does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CCT Fortis is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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 CCT Fortis 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.
Analytics focus
– CCT Fortis 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 Communications Equipment 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.
Innovation driven organization
– CCT Fortis is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.
Learning organization
- CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CCT Fortis emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– CCT Fortis has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CCT Fortis 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.
Training and development
– CCT Fortis has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CCT Fortis in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– CCT Fortis is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided CCT Fortis a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Weaknesses of CCT Fortis | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CCT Fortis are -
Lack of clear differentiation of CCT Fortis products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, CCT Fortis needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CCT Fortis has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis is just above the Communications Equipment 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, CCT Fortis 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Need for greater diversity
– CCT Fortis 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at CCT Fortis, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. CCT Fortis has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of CCT Fortis, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, CCT Fortis has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract CCT Fortis lucrative customers.
High dependence on CCT Fortis ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CCT Fortis still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CCT Fortis has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of CCT Fortis supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CCT Fortis is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CCT Fortis vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that CCT Fortis needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CCT Fortis can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CCT Fortis is planning to shift buying processes online.
CCT Fortis Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CCT Fortis are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for CCT Fortis in the Communications Equipment industry. Now CCT Fortis can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CCT Fortis has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help CCT Fortis to build a more holistic ecosystem for CCT Fortis products in the Communications Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CCT Fortis 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at CCT Fortis 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Buying journey improvements
– CCT Fortis can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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. CCT Fortis 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, CCT Fortis is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CCT Fortis can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects CCT Fortis can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– CCT Fortis 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 Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. CCT Fortis can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CCT Fortis in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– CCT Fortis can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Equipment 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.
Threats CCT Fortis External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CCT Fortis are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– CCT Fortis has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CCT Fortis needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CCT Fortis in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis prominent markets.
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. CCT Fortis needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CCT Fortis 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on CCT Fortis 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 Communications Equipment 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 CCT Fortis in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Environmental challenges
– CCT Fortis 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. CCT Fortis can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.
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, CCT Fortis may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents CCT Fortis with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
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. CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis 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 CCT Fortis needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
