Tinplate Company (TINP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Iron & Steel
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tinplate Company (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tinplate Company is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tinplate Company can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tinplate Company, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tinplate Company
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tinplate Company
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Iron & Steel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tinplate Company
Strengths of Tinplate Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tinplate Company are -
High brand equity
– Tinplate Company has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tinplate Company to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Iron & Steel industry
– Tinplate Company has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tinplate Company to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Iron & Steel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tinplate Company to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Tinplate Company comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Iron & Steel 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tinplate Company has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tinplate Company 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tinplate Company has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Iron & Steel industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tinplate Company have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Tinplate Company 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.
Digital Transformation in Iron & Steel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tinplate Company digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tinplate Company 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.
Ability to lead change in Iron & Steel
– Tinplate Company is one of the leading players in the Iron & Steel industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Iron & Steel industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Tinplate Company in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Iron & Steel industry
– Tinplate Company 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
– Tinplate Company is present in almost all the verticals within the Iron & Steel industry. This has provided Tinplate Company 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tinplate Company has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tinplate Company staying ahead in the Iron & Steel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Tinplate Company is one of the most innovative firm in Iron & Steel sector.
Weaknesses of Tinplate Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tinplate Company are -
Skills based hiring in Iron & Steel industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tinplate Company 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tinplate Company 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 Iron & Steel industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Tinplate Company has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Iron & Steel industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on Tinplate Company ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Tinplate Company still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Iron & Steel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Tinplate Company has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Tinplate Company, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Iron & Steel 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Tinplate Company is one of the leading players in the Iron & Steel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Iron & Steel industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Tinplate Company strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Tinplate Company 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.
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 Tinplate Company supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Tinplate Company is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tinplate Company vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tinplate Company has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Iron & Steel industry over the last five years. Tinplate Company 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Tinplate Company 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Tinplate Company needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Iron & Steel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tinplate Company can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tinplate Company is planning to shift buying processes online.
Tinplate Company Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tinplate Company are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tinplate Company is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tinplate Company can utilize new technology in the field of Iron & Steel industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tinplate Company has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Iron & Steel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tinplate Company to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tinplate Company to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Iron & Steel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tinplate Company 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. Tinplate Company 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tinplate Company 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.
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. Tinplate Company can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tinplate Company in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Iron & Steel industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tinplate Company 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tinplate Company 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
– Tinplate Company 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Tinplate Company to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tinplate Company can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Tinplate Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tinplate Company are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tinplate Company has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Iron & Steel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tinplate Company needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Iron & Steel 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.
Increasing wage structure of Tinplate Company
– 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 Tinplate Company.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tinplate Company in Iron & Steel industry. The Iron & Steel 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 Tinplate Company is facing in Iron & Steel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tinplate Company may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Iron & Steel sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Iron & Steel industry are lowering. It can presents Tinplate Company with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Iron & Steel sector.
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 Tinplate Company in the Iron & Steel sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Tinplate Company 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 Iron & Steel industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Iron & Steel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tinplate Company can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Tinplate Company needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Iron & Steel industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tinplate Company 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 Iron & Steel industry and other sectors.
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.
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 Tinplate Company business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tinplate Company Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company 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 Tinplate Company needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.