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McLeod Russel (MCLE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for McLeod Russel (India)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , McLeod Russel is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of McLeod Russel


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that McLeod Russel can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the McLeod Russel, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of McLeod Russel
2. Improving business portfolio management of McLeod Russel
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of McLeod Russel




Strengths of McLeod Russel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of McLeod Russel are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of McLeod Russel in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. McLeod Russel has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps McLeod Russel to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High brand equity

– McLeod Russel has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled McLeod Russel to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

– McLeod Russel has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled McLeod Russel to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped McLeod Russel to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– McLeod Russel is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided McLeod Russel 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of McLeod Russel comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.

Learning organization

- McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at McLeod Russel emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that McLeod Russel has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of McLeod Russel in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Innovation driven organization

– McLeod Russel is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Organizational Resilience of McLeod Russel

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing McLeod Russel does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the McLeod Russel 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of McLeod Russel are -

Employees’ less understanding of McLeod Russel strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of McLeod Russel 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of McLeod Russel is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but McLeod Russel needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help McLeod Russel to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, McLeod Russel is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help McLeod Russel to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at McLeod Russel, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. McLeod Russel has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Lack of clear differentiation of McLeod Russel products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, McLeod Russel needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at McLeod Russel has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

High dependence on McLeod Russel ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of McLeod Russel still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though McLeod Russel has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, McLeod Russel has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract McLeod Russel lucrative customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of McLeod Russel, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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 decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, McLeod Russel has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. McLeod Russel 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, McLeod Russel 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.




McLeod Russel Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of McLeod Russel 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, McLeod Russel can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that McLeod Russel operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, McLeod Russel is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. McLeod Russel can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Manufacturing automation

– McLeod Russel can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. McLeod Russel 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. McLeod Russel can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

Loyalty marketing

– McLeod Russel 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of McLeod Russel has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help McLeod Russel to build a more holistic ecosystem for McLeod Russel products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. McLeod Russel can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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 McLeod Russel 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects McLeod Russel can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Buying journey improvements

– McLeod Russel can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for McLeod Russel in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.




Threats McLeod Russel External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of McLeod Russel are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for McLeod Russel in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. McLeod Russel will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

Environmental challenges

– McLeod Russel 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. McLeod Russel can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

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. McLeod Russel needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– McLeod Russel can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Food Processing industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that McLeod Russel is facing in Food Processing 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.

Regulatory challenges

– McLeod Russel 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 Food Processing industry regulations.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel prominent markets.

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 McLeod Russel.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– McLeod Russel 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, McLeod Russel may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents McLeod Russel with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of McLeod Russel Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel 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 McLeod Russel needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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