SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Galaxy Surfactants (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Galaxy Surfactants is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Galaxy Surfactants
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Galaxy Surfactants can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Galaxy Surfactants, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Galaxy Surfactants
2. Improving business portfolio management of Galaxy Surfactants
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Galaxy Surfactants
Strengths of Galaxy Surfactants | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Galaxy Surfactants are -
Innovation driven organization
– Galaxy Surfactants is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Galaxy Surfactants has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Galaxy Surfactants staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Galaxy Surfactants
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Galaxy Surfactants does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Galaxy Surfactants has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Galaxy Surfactants to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Galaxy Surfactants has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Galaxy Surfactants is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Galaxy Surfactants in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Galaxy Surfactants in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Galaxy Surfactants has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Galaxy Surfactants to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Galaxy Surfactants digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Galaxy Surfactants has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Galaxy Surfactants to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Galaxy Surfactants to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Galaxy Surfactants has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Galaxy Surfactants have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Galaxy Surfactants | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Galaxy Surfactants are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Galaxy Surfactants is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Galaxy Surfactants to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Galaxy Surfactants supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Galaxy Surfactants is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Galaxy Surfactants vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Galaxy Surfactants, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Galaxy Surfactants, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Galaxy Surfactants has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Galaxy Surfactants has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Galaxy Surfactants is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Galaxy Surfactants needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Galaxy Surfactants can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Galaxy Surfactants is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Galaxy Surfactants has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Galaxy Surfactants is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Galaxy Surfactants needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Galaxy Surfactants to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Galaxy Surfactants ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Galaxy Surfactants still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemical Manufacturing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Galaxy Surfactants has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Galaxy Surfactants Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Galaxy Surfactants are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Galaxy Surfactants can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Galaxy Surfactants operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
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. Galaxy Surfactants can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Galaxy Surfactants to increase its market reach. Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Galaxy Surfactants in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Galaxy Surfactants can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Galaxy Surfactants 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Galaxy Surfactants to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Galaxy Surfactants can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Galaxy Surfactants in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Galaxy Surfactants has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Galaxy Surfactants to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Galaxy Surfactants to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Galaxy Surfactants can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Threats Galaxy Surfactants External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants.
Regulatory challenges
– Galaxy Surfactants 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Galaxy Surfactants
– 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 Galaxy Surfactants.
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 Galaxy Surfactants in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Galaxy Surfactants 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Galaxy Surfactants has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Galaxy Surfactants needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Galaxy Surfactants 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants prominent markets.
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 Galaxy Surfactants business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Galaxy Surfactants can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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. Galaxy Surfactants needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Galaxy Surfactants 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. Galaxy Surfactants can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Galaxy Surfactants Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants 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 Galaxy Surfactants needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.