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 – there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , 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 -
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– GLOBAL Sweeteners is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 GLOBAL Sweeteners is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GLOBAL Sweeteners emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– GLOBAL Sweeteners is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GLOBAL Sweeteners in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For GLOBAL Sweeteners digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. GLOBAL Sweeteners 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.
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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of GLOBAL Sweeteners in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. GLOBAL Sweeteners has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps GLOBAL Sweeteners to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
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.
Training and development
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Weaknesses of GLOBAL Sweeteners | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of GLOBAL Sweeteners, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
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 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
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.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at GLOBAL Sweeteners can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as GLOBAL Sweeteners is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, GLOBAL Sweeteners has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract GLOBAL Sweeteners lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though GLOBAL Sweeteners has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. GLOBAL Sweeteners should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
GLOBAL Sweeteners Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GLOBAL Sweeteners are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. GLOBAL Sweeteners can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, GLOBAL Sweeteners is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GLOBAL Sweeteners can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– GLOBAL Sweeteners can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Buying journey improvements
– GLOBAL Sweeteners can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents GLOBAL Sweeteners with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on GLOBAL Sweeteners 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– GLOBAL Sweeteners 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. GLOBAL Sweeteners can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. GLOBAL Sweeteners can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– GLOBAL Sweeteners has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, GLOBAL Sweeteners needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
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.
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.