SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ruchira Papers Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ruchira Papers Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ruchira Papers Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ruchira Papers Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ruchira Papers Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ruchira Papers Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ruchira Papers Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Paper & Paper Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ruchira Papers Ltd
Strengths of Ruchira Papers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ruchira Papers Ltd are -
Organizational Resilience of Ruchira Papers Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ruchira Papers Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Ruchira Papers Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ruchira Papers Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ruchira Papers Ltd in Paper & Paper Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ruchira Papers Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ruchira Papers Ltd staying ahead in the Paper & Paper Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ruchira Papers Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ruchira Papers Ltd in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Ruchira Papers Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ruchira Papers Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ruchira Papers Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Paper & Paper Products industry. This has provided Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Paper & Paper Products industry
– Ruchira Papers Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ruchira Papers Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Paper & Paper Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ruchira Papers Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Paper & Paper Products industry
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ruchira Papers Ltd are -
High dependence on Ruchira Papers Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ruchira Papers Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Paper & Paper Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ruchira Papers Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Paper & Paper Products industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ruchira Papers Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Paper & Paper Products industry over the last five years. Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Paper & Paper Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Paper & Paper Products industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ruchira Papers Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Paper & Paper Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ruchira Papers Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ruchira Papers Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ruchira Papers Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Paper & Paper Products 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Paper & Paper Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ruchira Papers Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ruchira Papers Ltd is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Paper & Paper Products industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ruchira Papers Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ruchira Papers Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Ruchira Papers Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ruchira Papers Ltd are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ruchira Papers Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ruchira Papers Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Paper & Paper Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ruchira Papers Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ruchira Papers Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Paper & Paper Products industry. This can help Ruchira Papers Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ruchira Papers Ltd products in the Paper & Paper Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ruchira Papers Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Paper & Paper Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ruchira Papers Ltd to increase its market reach. Ruchira Papers Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Loyalty marketing
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ruchira Papers Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ruchira Papers Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Paper & Paper Products sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Paper & Paper Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ruchira Papers Ltd 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. Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ruchira Papers Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Paper & Paper Products 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Paper & Paper Products industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Paper & Paper Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ruchira Papers Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ruchira Papers Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Paper & Paper Products 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ruchira Papers Ltd are -
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 Ruchira Papers Ltd in the Paper & Paper Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ruchira Papers Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Paper & Paper Products sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Paper & Paper Products industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Paper & Paper Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ruchira Papers Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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. Ruchira Papers Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Paper & Paper Products industry.
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 Ruchira Papers Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Paper & Paper Products industry are lowering. It can presents Ruchira Papers Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Paper & Paper Products sector.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ruchira Papers Ltd is facing in Paper & Paper Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ruchira Papers Ltd 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.
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. Ruchira Papers Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Paper & Paper Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ruchira Papers Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd 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 Ruchira Papers Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
