SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eggriculture Foods (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eggriculture Foods is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eggriculture Foods
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eggriculture Foods can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eggriculture Foods, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eggriculture Foods
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eggriculture Foods
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eggriculture Foods
Strengths of Eggriculture Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eggriculture Foods are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Eggriculture Foods is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Eggriculture Foods 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.
High brand equity
– Eggriculture Foods has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eggriculture Foods to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock
– Eggriculture Foods is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eggriculture Foods 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 Fish/Livestock industry
– Eggriculture Foods is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry
– Eggriculture Foods has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eggriculture Foods to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eggriculture Foods to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eggriculture Foods in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Eggriculture Foods has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eggriculture Foods to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eggriculture Foods in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eggriculture Foods comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Eggriculture Foods is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eggriculture Foods has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eggriculture Foods have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eggriculture Foods has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eggriculture Foods staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eggriculture Foods emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Eggriculture Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eggriculture Foods are -
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 Eggriculture Foods supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eggriculture Foods is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eggriculture Foods vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eggriculture Foods has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eggriculture Foods should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eggriculture Foods is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eggriculture Foods has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High dependence on Eggriculture Foods ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eggriculture Foods still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eggriculture Foods has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Eggriculture Foods needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Eggriculture Foods 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eggriculture Foods has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fish/Livestock industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eggriculture Foods has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods is just above the Fish/Livestock 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eggriculture Foods products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eggriculture Foods needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Eggriculture Foods Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eggriculture Foods are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eggriculture Foods to increase its market reach. Eggriculture Foods 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eggriculture Foods can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Eggriculture Foods can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eggriculture Foods is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eggriculture Foods can utilize new technology in the field of Fish/Livestock industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eggriculture Foods has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eggriculture Foods to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eggriculture Foods to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eggriculture Foods can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eggriculture Foods operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eggriculture Foods 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eggriculture Foods has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fish/Livestock industry. This can help Eggriculture Foods to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eggriculture Foods products in the Fish/Livestock industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Eggriculture Foods can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eggriculture Foods 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Threats Eggriculture Foods External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eggriculture Foods are -
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 Eggriculture Foods.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eggriculture Foods 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eggriculture Foods 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eggriculture Foods 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
– Eggriculture Foods 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods prominent markets.
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 Eggriculture Foods in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eggriculture Foods may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fish/Livestock sector.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eggriculture Foods is facing in Fish/Livestock sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Eggriculture Foods with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eggriculture Foods has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eggriculture Foods needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eggriculture Foods Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods 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 Eggriculture Foods needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.