SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Supreme Petrochem (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Supreme Petrochem is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Supreme Petrochem
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Supreme Petrochem can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Supreme Petrochem, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Supreme Petrochem
2. Improving business portfolio management of Supreme Petrochem
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Supreme Petrochem
Strengths of Supreme Petrochem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Supreme Petrochem are -
Digital Transformation in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Supreme Petrochem digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Supreme Petrochem 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.
Training and development
– Supreme Petrochem 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.
Analytics focus
– Supreme Petrochem 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Supreme Petrochem 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Supreme Petrochem is one of the most innovative firm in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– Supreme Petrochem has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Supreme Petrochem to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Supreme Petrochem to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Supreme Petrochem has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Supreme Petrochem staying ahead in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Supreme Petrochem
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Supreme Petrochem does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Supreme Petrochem is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This has provided Supreme Petrochem 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Supreme Petrochem is one of the leading players in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Learning organization
- Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Supreme Petrochem emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– Supreme Petrochem is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Supreme Petrochem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Supreme Petrochem are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Supreme Petrochem needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Supreme Petrochem can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Supreme Petrochem is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Supreme Petrochem 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Supreme Petrochem has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry over the last five years. Supreme Petrochem 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Supreme Petrochem strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Supreme Petrochem 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Supreme Petrochem, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, Supreme Petrochem 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Supreme Petrochem needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Supreme Petrochem ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Supreme Petrochem still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Supreme Petrochem has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Supreme Petrochem has some of the most successful models in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Supreme Petrochem should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Supreme Petrochem is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, but Supreme Petrochem needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Supreme Petrochem to focus more on services in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Supreme Petrochem 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Supreme Petrochem Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Supreme Petrochem are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Supreme Petrochem 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Supreme Petrochem has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Supreme Petrochem to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Supreme Petrochem to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Supreme Petrochem is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Supreme Petrochem can utilize new technology in the field of Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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, Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Supreme Petrochem in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Supreme Petrochem in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. Now Supreme Petrochem can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Supreme Petrochem can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Supreme Petrochem can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Supreme Petrochem can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Supreme Petrochem can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Supreme Petrochem operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Supreme Petrochem 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.
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. Supreme Petrochem can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Supreme Petrochem External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Supreme Petrochem are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Supreme Petrochem in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. The Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Supreme Petrochem is facing in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Supreme Petrochem 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Supreme Petrochem 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.
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. Supreme Petrochem needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Supreme Petrochem
– 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 Supreme Petrochem.
Environmental challenges
– Supreme Petrochem 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. Supreme Petrochem can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
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.
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 Supreme Petrochem in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Supreme Petrochem.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Supreme Petrochem Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem 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 Supreme Petrochem needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.