Britannia Industries (BRIT) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Britannia Industries (India)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Britannia Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Britannia Industries

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Britannia Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Britannia Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Britannia Industries 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Britannia Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Britannia Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Britannia Industries
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Britannia Industries

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Strengths of Britannia Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Britannia Industries are -

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Britannia Industries is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Britannia Industries 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

– Britannia Industries has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Britannia Industries 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Britannia Industries in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Diverse revenue streams

– Britannia Industries is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Britannia Industries 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

– Britannia Industries has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Britannia Industries to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Britannia Industries to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Britannia Industries 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.

High brand equity

– Britannia Industries has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Britannia Industries to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Innovation driven organization

– Britannia Industries is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Learning organization

- Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Britannia Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Britannia Industries in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Britannia Industries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Britannia Industries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Organizational Resilience of Britannia Industries

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Britannia Industries does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Britannia Industries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Britannia Industries 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.

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Weaknesses of Britannia Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Britannia Industries are -

Need for greater diversity

– Britannia Industries 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Britannia Industries is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Britannia Industries to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Britannia Industries 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.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Britannia Industries 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Britannia Industries 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Britannia Industries is planning to shift buying processes online.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Britannia Industries, 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Britannia Industries strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Britannia Industries don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Lack of clear differentiation of Britannia Industries products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Britannia Industries needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of India, Britannia Industries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Britannia Industries is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

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Britannia Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Britannia Industries are -

Loyalty marketing

– Britannia Industries 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. Britannia Industries 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. Britannia Industries 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.

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. Britannia Industries can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Developing new processes and practices

– Britannia Industries can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Britannia Industries 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Britannia Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Britannia Industries 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Britannia Industries 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Britannia Industries can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Britannia Industries operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.

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 Britannia Industries 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Britannia Industries is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Britannia Industries 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Britannia Industries to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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Threats Britannia Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Britannia Industries are -

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 Britannia Industries is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 Britannia Industries.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Britannia Industries 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.

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 Britannia Industries in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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. Britannia Industries can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Britannia Industries with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Britannia Industries 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.

Increasing wage structure of Britannia Industries

– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Britannia Industries.

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. Britannia Industries 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Britannia Industries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Britannia Industries 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.

Environmental challenges

– Britannia Industries 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. Britannia Industries can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

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 Britannia Industries business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Britannia Industries Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries 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 Britannia Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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