Avadh Sugar Energy (AVAD) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Avadh Sugar Energy (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Avadh Sugar Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, 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%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Avadh Sugar Energy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Avadh Sugar Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Avadh Sugar Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Avadh Sugar Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Avadh Sugar Energy
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 Avadh Sugar Energy
Strengths of Avadh Sugar Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Avadh Sugar Energy are -
Learning organization
- Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Avadh Sugar Energy emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Avadh Sugar Energy is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Avadh Sugar Energy has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Avadh Sugar Energy to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Avadh Sugar Energy to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Avadh Sugar Energy is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Avadh Sugar Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Avadh Sugar Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Avadh Sugar Energy in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Avadh Sugar Energy digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Avadh Sugar Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Avadh Sugar Energy staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Avadh Sugar Energy has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Avadh Sugar Energy has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Weaknesses of Avadh Sugar Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Avadh Sugar Energy are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Food Processing industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Avadh Sugar Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Avadh Sugar Energy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Avadh Sugar Energy is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Avadh Sugar Energy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Avadh Sugar Energy needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Avadh Sugar Energy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Avadh Sugar Energy is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Avadh Sugar Energy, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Avadh Sugar Energy has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Avadh Sugar Energy should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Avadh Sugar Energy is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Avadh Sugar Energy to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Avadh Sugar Energy strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Avadh Sugar Energy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Avadh Sugar Energy to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Avadh Sugar Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Avadh Sugar Energy are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Avadh Sugar Energy can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Avadh Sugar Energy operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Avadh Sugar Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Avadh Sugar Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Avadh Sugar Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Avadh Sugar Energy can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Food Processing industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Avadh Sugar Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
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 Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
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. Avadh Sugar Energy can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Avadh Sugar Energy can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Avadh Sugar Energy can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Threats Avadh Sugar Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Avadh Sugar Energy are -
Increasing wage structure of Avadh Sugar Energy
– 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 Avadh Sugar Energy.
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. Avadh Sugar Energy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
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 Avadh Sugar Energy in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Avadh Sugar Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Avadh Sugar Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Avadh Sugar Energy needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
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.
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.
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. Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
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 Avadh Sugar Energy.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Avadh Sugar Energy can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Avadh Sugar Energy 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Avadh Sugar Energy is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Avadh Sugar Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy 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 Avadh Sugar Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.