SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eternity Technology (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eternity Technology is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eternity Technology
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eternity Technology can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eternity Technology, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eternity Technology
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eternity Technology
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Semiconductors sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eternity Technology
Strengths of Eternity Technology | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eternity Technology are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eternity Technology is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eternity Technology has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Eternity Technology has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eternity Technology to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eternity Technology has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eternity Technology staying ahead in the Semiconductors industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Semiconductors
– Eternity Technology is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Semiconductors industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eternity Technology in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors 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.
Learning organization
- Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eternity Technology emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eternity Technology has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Semiconductors industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eternity Technology have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Semiconductors industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eternity Technology digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eternity Technology 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eternity Technology is present in almost all the verticals within the Semiconductors industry. This has provided Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eternity Technology does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eternity Technology comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Semiconductors 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.
Weaknesses of Eternity Technology | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eternity Technology are -
High dependence on Eternity Technology ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eternity Technology still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Semiconductors industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eternity Technology has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eternity Technology has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Semiconductors 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, Eternity Technology has high operating costs in the Semiconductors industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eternity Technology lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eternity Technology has some of the most successful models in the Semiconductors industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eternity Technology should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Semiconductors industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eternity Technology 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eternity Technology needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Semiconductors industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eternity Technology can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eternity Technology is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Eternity Technology 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eternity Technology products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eternity Technology needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eternity Technology is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Semiconductors industry, but Eternity Technology needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eternity Technology to focus more on services in the Semiconductors industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Eternity Technology is just above the Semiconductors 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.
Eternity Technology Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eternity Technology are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eternity Technology 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eternity Technology can develop new processes and procedures in Semiconductors 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eternity Technology has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Semiconductors sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eternity Technology to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eternity Technology to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eternity Technology can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Semiconductors industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Semiconductors industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Eternity Technology 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Semiconductors industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eternity Technology 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. Eternity Technology 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eternity Technology can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Semiconductors 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 Eternity Technology has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Semiconductors industry. This can help Eternity Technology to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eternity Technology products in the Semiconductors industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Eternity Technology External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eternity Technology are -
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.
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. Eternity Technology needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Semiconductors industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors industry and other sectors.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eternity Technology is facing in Semiconductors sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eternity Technology 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eternity Technology 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 Semiconductors industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Semiconductors industry are lowering. It can presents Eternity Technology with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Semiconductors 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. Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eternity Technology in Semiconductors industry. The Semiconductors 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 Eternity Technology Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology 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 Eternity Technology needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.