SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bombay Burmah Trading (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bombay Burmah Trading is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bombay Burmah Trading
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bombay Burmah Trading can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bombay Burmah Trading, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bombay Burmah Trading
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bombay Burmah Trading
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bombay Burmah Trading
Strengths of Bombay Burmah Trading | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bombay Burmah Trading are -
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Bombay Burmah Trading is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bombay Burmah Trading is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Learning organization
- Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bombay Burmah Trading emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Bombay Burmah Trading
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bombay Burmah Trading does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bombay Burmah Trading is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bombay Burmah Trading has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Crops industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bombay Burmah Trading have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bombay Burmah Trading has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
High brand equity
– Bombay Burmah Trading has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bombay Burmah Trading to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bombay Burmah Trading has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bombay Burmah Trading staying ahead in the Crops 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 Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Bombay Burmah Trading has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bombay Burmah Trading to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Bombay Burmah Trading | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bombay Burmah Trading are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bombay Burmah Trading is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Bombay Burmah Trading needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bombay Burmah Trading to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bombay Burmah Trading has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Bombay Burmah Trading should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Bombay Burmah Trading has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Bombay Burmah Trading products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bombay Burmah Trading needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Bombay Burmah Trading needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bombay Burmah Trading can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bombay Burmah Trading is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bombay Burmah Trading 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bombay Burmah Trading has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bombay Burmah Trading lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bombay Burmah Trading, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bombay Burmah Trading has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Bombay Burmah Trading Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bombay Burmah Trading are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bombay Burmah Trading is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bombay Burmah Trading can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bombay Burmah Trading can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bombay Burmah Trading operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Bombay Burmah Trading can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bombay Burmah Trading 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. Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Crops industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Bombay Burmah Trading in the Crops industry. Now Bombay Burmah Trading can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bombay Burmah Trading to increase its market reach. Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bombay Burmah Trading has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bombay Burmah Trading to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bombay Burmah Trading to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bombay Burmah Trading can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bombay Burmah Trading has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Bombay Burmah Trading to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bombay Burmah Trading products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Bombay Burmah Trading External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops industry.
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 Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Bombay Burmah Trading with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Bombay Burmah Trading 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. Bombay Burmah Trading can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bombay Burmah Trading in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
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 Bombay Burmah Trading in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bombay Burmah Trading can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bombay Burmah Trading has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bombay Burmah Trading needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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 Bombay Burmah Trading Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading 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 Bombay Burmah Trading needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.