The TOWS Matrix – How To Implement It?

TOWS Matrix is a framework for evaluating the company strategy, creating, comparing it, and eventually deciding.

It is a modified form of the SWOT analysis and represents the threat, opportunity, weakness, strength, and abbreviation. It was created to study companies from an effective viewpoint regarding administration and marketing by an American corporate professor, Heinz Weirich in 1982. The assessment combines outside possibilities and threats with a firm’s internal strengths and weaknesses.

Apple, Amazon, and Google — we’ve all heard of these multibillion-dollar corporations and are familiar with their goods. Since its inception, they have been able to withstand the ups and downs of the economy and have effectively built brand value.

Unlike other businesses that couldn’t maintain themselves or have gone out of business, all three firms must have done something well to help them stay in the game for the long haul. Analysts use marketing methods to figure out the answers to such statements.

What is the TOWS Matrix?

The assessment of external risks and opportunities starts at TOWS Matrix. This examination offers a clear understanding and supports the adoption of long-term plans. Then a firm takes account of the internal strengths and limitations. In the following phase, internal analysis is linked to external analysis to develop a plan.

TOWS Analysis goes far further than standard SWOT Analysis and supports companies to stay in a shifting competitive landscape one step ahead. While internal and external forces are irreconcilable, a balance between them still exists.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal and consist of HR policies, production processes, aims and objectives, product and service characteristics for the target market, core values, a work culture, employees, and the corporate basics.
Opportunities and threats, On the other hand, lie within external variables, which include government regulations, a dynamic market character, a changing taste, and customer choice, market rivalry, fluctuations in raw material production, and so on.

Now we will talk about the four possible methods of the TOWS matrix. There are four TOWS policies:

• Strength/Opportunity (SO)
• Weakness/Opportunity (WO)
• Strength/Threat (ST)
• Weakness/Threat (WT)

Strengths and Opportunities (SO) / Maxi-Maxi Strategy

The objective of the Maxi-Maxi strategy is to harness internal strengths so that the firm may make the most use of its external possibilities. This means that the firm needs to use its capabilities to cash out possible possibilities from its resources.

For instance, if a firmcreated a reasonable brand name and has won the hearts of the consumers, it may search for new places on the market or introduce a new line of products and services to the same target market. Such a step might be the most acceptable way to raise the company.

Strengths and Threats (ST) / Maxi-Mini Strategy

The objective of a Maxi-Mini strategy is to maximise a company’s strengths while reducing the dangers. A firm should thus use its own forces to prevent significant external threats. This approach shows that management can use all of the internal strengths to tackle any risks the firm might face as barriers.

Example: There is always a rivalry between new and old participants in the market. The trailing firm must use its inner force, such as quality, manufacturing technology, heritage, and customer service, in such a circumstance to overcome the competition.

Weakness and Opportunities (WO) / Mini-Maxi Strategy

The Mini-Maxi method tries to reduce vulnerabilities and maximise possibilities. The goal is to rectify internal deficiencies by using exterior possibilities. The company’s leaders will find different ways to look past the flaws and deal with problems as they come up. A good selection to decrease or rectify flaws and untapped possibilities is always a matter of fact.

Example: If the firm lacks the knowledge needed for growth in any business field and allows it to partner with an enterprise with the necessary skills, the scenario benefits both organisations.

Weakness and Threats (WT) / Mini-Mini Strategy

The Mini-Mini Strategy’s objective is to reduce vulnerabilities and dangers as well. The most defensive place in the TOWS matrix is undoubted. It is used primarily in a terrible position of a corporation. The business works in this setting in an aggressive environment with little or no possibilities for development. The mini-mini approach is nothing more than a gloomy winding up of an enterprise.

EXAMPLE: A company’s splendour and shine have been gone, and stakeholders have lost their faith. There is therefore a potential to lose out on investors’ money and investment. In this situation, it might close goods that are not well available, reduce underperforming staff and develop a hostile marketing method. If hopeful, the firm might seek a merger with another appropriate company to use its experience and resources to invest.

Advantages & Disadvantages of TOWS Analysis

Advantages of using TOWS Matrix

• The TOWS Analysis helps to break with strategic concepts by linking the companies with their internal and external variables.
• In nature, it is economically efficient.
• After understanding some parameters, it is user pleasant and can be carried out by a layperson.
• Any firm regardless of industry and economy may be tested for TOWS Analysis.
• It allows organisations to change dynamics in their strategy.

Disadvantages of TOWS Matrix

• If we are overburdened with information, TOWS analysis is difficult to handle.
• TWOS Matrix sometimes fails to take into account the continuously evolving competitive environment and might influence the major objective for developing a strategy for the company with a view to achieving high profits, higher sales, brand value generation and so on.

Difference between TOWS and SWOT matrix

Both SWOT and TOWS analyses use the same fundamental steps and are likely to yield comparable results. However, the order in which managers consider strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities might influence the direction of the study. Michael Watkins of the “Harvard Business Review” asserts that focusing on risks and opportunities before discussing a company’s strengths and weaknesses leads to more effective conversations concerning the external environment. Following are some key differences between the both:

• A tool for action is the TOWS matrix and a tool for planning the SWOT matrix.
• Businesses identify their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in SWOT analyses.
• Thought TOWS matrix organisations, which detect the link and select strategies based on these variables.
• Often managers cannot agree with the strategic decision the outcome needs when doing the swot analytical testing.
• The progressive advantage of the TOWS matrix by connecting organisational strength and weakness with outside opportunities and dangers.
• Compared to the SWOT analysis, the TOWS matrix is a larger scope.

Conclusion

Applying TOWS to your SWOT results is effective because it prompts you to evaluate how your greatest strengths might capitalise on your greatest chances or neutralise your greatest dangers. At the same time, it calls attention to internal flaws that may impede external opportunities, as well as risky circumstances where threats and vulnerabilities intersect.

In a nutshell, TOWS may assist you in developing a broad outline of how the greatest and worst components of your project/team/brand/organisation should connect with critical external factors. This summary can then serve as the basis for a detailed plan to manage your surroundings and achieve your goals.

Also Read: What is PESTLE Analysis? Factors and Examples