SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Agarwal Industrial Corp (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Agarwal Industrial Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Agarwal Industrial Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Agarwal Industrial Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Agarwal Industrial Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Agarwal Industrial Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Agarwal Industrial Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Agarwal Industrial Corp
Strengths of Agarwal Industrial Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Agarwal Industrial Corp are -
Learning organization
- Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Agarwal Industrial Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Agarwal Industrial Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Agarwal Industrial Corp in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Agarwal Industrial Corp in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Agarwal Industrial Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Agarwal Industrial Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Agarwal Industrial Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Agarwal Industrial Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Agarwal Industrial Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Agarwal Industrial Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Agarwal Industrial Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Agarwal Industrial Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Agarwal Industrial Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Agarwal Industrial Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Weaknesses of Agarwal Industrial Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Agarwal Industrial Corp are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Agarwal Industrial Corp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Agarwal Industrial Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Agarwal Industrial Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Agarwal Industrial Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Agarwal Industrial Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Agarwal Industrial Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Agarwal Industrial Corp to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Agarwal Industrial Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Agarwal Industrial Corp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Agarwal Industrial Corp has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Agarwal Industrial Corp lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Agarwal Industrial Corp has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Agarwal Industrial Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Agarwal Industrial Corp is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Agarwal Industrial Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Agarwal Industrial Corp are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Agarwal Industrial Corp can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Agarwal Industrial Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Agarwal Industrial Corp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Agarwal Industrial Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Agarwal Industrial Corp can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Agarwal Industrial Corp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Agarwal Industrial Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Agarwal Industrial Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Agarwal Industrial Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Agarwal Industrial Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Agarwal Industrial Corp products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Agarwal Industrial Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Agarwal Industrial Corp in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Agarwal Industrial Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Agarwal Industrial Corp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Threats Agarwal Industrial Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Agarwal Industrial Corp are -
Increasing wage structure of Agarwal Industrial Corp
– 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Agarwal Industrial Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
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. Agarwal Industrial Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Agarwal Industrial Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Agarwal Industrial Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Agarwal Industrial Corp in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Agarwal Industrial Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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 Agarwal Industrial Corp.
Regulatory challenges
– Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Agarwal Industrial Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp 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 Agarwal Industrial Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.