SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sintex Industries (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sintex Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption,
there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sintex Industries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sintex Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sintex Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sintex Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sintex Industries
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sintex Industries
Strengths of Sintex Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sintex Industries are -
Analytics focus
– Sintex Industries 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 Fabricated Plastic & 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.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sintex Industries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sintex Industries 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sintex Industries has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sintex Industries 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Sintex Industries has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sintex Industries to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sintex Industries to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Sintex Industries is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sintex Industries 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sintex Industries in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Sintex Industries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sintex Industries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
– Sintex Industries is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sintex Industries in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sintex Industries is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Sintex Industries 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
– Sintex Industries is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & 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
- Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sintex Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sintex Industries in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Sintex Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sintex Industries are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sintex Industries, in the dynamic environment of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sintex Industries has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sintex Industries has high operating costs in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sintex Industries lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Sintex Industries strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries is just above the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sintex Industries has some of the most successful models in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sintex Industries should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sintex Industries 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Sintex Industries has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sintex Industries needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sintex Industries can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sintex Industries is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Sintex Industries has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sintex Industries 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sintex Industries is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
Sintex Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sintex Industries are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sintex Industries 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sintex Industries 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sintex Industries 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. Sintex Industries 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sintex Industries has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Sintex Industries to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sintex Industries products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sintex Industries 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
– Sintex Industries has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sintex Industries to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sintex Industries to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Sintex Industries can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fabricated Plastic & 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sintex Industries can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Sintex Industries can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fabricated Plastic & 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sintex Industries 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.
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 Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Sintex Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sintex Industries are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Sintex Industries.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sintex Industries in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The Fabricated Plastic & 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.
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. Sintex Industries needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Sintex Industries in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sintex Industries is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sintex Industries can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sintex Industries may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sintex Industries 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Sintex Industries
– 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 Sintex Industries.
Regulatory challenges
– Sintex Industries 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry regulations.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry are lowering. It can presents Sintex Industries with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sintex Industries Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries 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 Sintex Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.