GLOBAL Sweeteners (3889) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GLOBAL Sweeteners (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GLOBAL Sweeteners is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GLOBAL Sweeteners
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GLOBAL Sweeteners can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GLOBAL Sweeteners, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GLOBAL Sweeteners
2. Improving business portfolio management of GLOBAL Sweeteners
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GLOBAL Sweeteners
Strengths of GLOBAL Sweeteners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
Innovation driven organization
– GLOBAL Sweeteners is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GLOBAL Sweeteners comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– GLOBAL Sweeteners is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – GLOBAL Sweeteners staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that GLOBAL Sweeteners has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of GLOBAL Sweeteners in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of GLOBAL Sweeteners
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing GLOBAL Sweeteners does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GLOBAL Sweeteners have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled GLOBAL Sweeteners to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped GLOBAL Sweeteners to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of GLOBAL Sweeteners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of GLOBAL Sweeteners is just above the Food Processing 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
GLOBAL Sweeteners has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
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 GLOBAL Sweeteners supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, GLOBAL Sweeteners is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left GLOBAL Sweeteners vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, GLOBAL Sweeteners has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at GLOBAL Sweeteners, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. GLOBAL Sweeteners has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on GLOBAL Sweeteners ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of GLOBAL Sweeteners still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though GLOBAL Sweeteners has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of GLOBAL Sweeteners is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help GLOBAL Sweeteners to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, GLOBAL Sweeteners is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help GLOBAL Sweeteners to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of GLOBAL Sweeteners products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
GLOBAL Sweeteners Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled GLOBAL Sweeteners to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help GLOBAL Sweeteners to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for GLOBAL Sweeteners in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
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 GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help GLOBAL Sweeteners to increase its market reach. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of GLOBAL Sweeteners has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help GLOBAL Sweeteners to build a more holistic ecosystem for GLOBAL Sweeteners products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
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. GLOBAL Sweeteners can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Threats GLOBAL Sweeteners External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for GLOBAL Sweeteners in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
Regulatory challenges
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
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. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
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. GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 GLOBAL Sweeteners.
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.
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 GLOBAL Sweeteners business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, GLOBAL Sweeteners may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GLOBAL Sweeteners Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.