Excel Crop Care Ltd (EXCR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Excel Crop Care Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Excel Crop Care Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Excel Crop Care Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Excel Crop Care Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Excel Crop Care Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Excel Crop Care Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Excel Crop Care Ltd
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 Excel Crop Care Ltd
Strengths of Excel Crop Care Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Excel Crop Care Ltd are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry. The technology infrastructure of India 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Excel Crop Care Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Excel Crop Care Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Training and development
– Excel Crop Care Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Excel Crop Care Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Excel Crop Care Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Excel Crop Care Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Organizational Resilience of Excel Crop Care Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Excel Crop Care Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Excel Crop Care Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Excel Crop Care Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Excel Crop Care Ltd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Excel Crop Care Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Excel Crop Care Ltd is just above the Chemical Manufacturing industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on Excel Crop Care Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Excel Crop Care Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Excel Crop Care Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Excel Crop Care Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Excel Crop Care Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Excel Crop Care Ltd to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Excel Crop Care Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Excel Crop Care Ltd are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Excel Crop Care Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Excel Crop Care Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Excel Crop Care Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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 Excel Crop Care Ltd in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Excel Crop Care Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Excel Crop Care Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Excel Crop Care Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Excel Crop Care Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Excel Crop Care Ltd are -
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
– Excel Crop Care Ltd 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, Excel Crop Care Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Excel Crop Care Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Excel Crop Care Ltd in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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 Excel Crop Care Ltd.
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. Excel Crop Care Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Excel Crop Care Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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 Excel Crop Care Ltd in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Excel Crop Care Ltd 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.
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. Excel Crop Care Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Excel Crop Care Ltd is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Excel Crop Care Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd 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 Excel Crop Care Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.