SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ashima Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ashima Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – 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 energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ashima Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ashima Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ashima 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 Ashima Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ashima Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ashima Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Textiles - Non Apparel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ashima Ltd
Strengths of Ashima Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ashima Ltd are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ashima Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ashima Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ashima Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ashima Ltd staying ahead in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Ashima 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 Ashima Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ashima Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ashima Ltd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Ashima Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ashima Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ashima Ltd in Textiles - Non Apparel industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ashima 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.
Training and development
– Ashima Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Consumer 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ashima Ltd is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Digital Transformation in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ashima Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ashima Ltd 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.
Ability to lead change in Textiles - Non Apparel
– Ashima Ltd is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ashima Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Ashima Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ashima Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ashima Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Weaknesses of Ashima Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ashima Ltd are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ashima Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ashima Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ashima Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Ashima 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
High dependence on Ashima Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ashima Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Textiles - Non Apparel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ashima Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ashima Ltd is just above the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ashima Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Textiles - Non Apparel industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ashima Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ashima Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ashima Ltd is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ashima 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry over the last five years. Ashima 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ashima Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ashima Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, Ashima Ltd 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, Ashima 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.
Ashima Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ashima Ltd are -
Manufacturing automation
– Ashima Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Textiles - Non Apparel 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
– Ashima 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Ashima Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Ashima Ltd 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ashima 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. Ashima 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ashima 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ashima Ltd in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Now Ashima Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ashima Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ashima 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ashima Ltd can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ashima Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This can help Ashima Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ashima Ltd products in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ashima Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ashima Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ashima Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ashima Ltd to increase its market reach. Ashima 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.
Threats Ashima Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ashima Ltd 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 Ashima Ltd.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ashima 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 Ashima Ltd prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Textiles - Non Apparel industry are lowering. It can presents Ashima Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Textiles - Non Apparel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ashima Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ashima 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ashima Ltd 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Ashima Ltd 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Ashima Ltd
– 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 Ashima Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ashima Ltd is facing in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Ashima 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. Ashima Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
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. Ashima 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. Ashima Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Textiles - Non Apparel 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 Ashima Ltd in the Textiles - Non Apparel sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ashima Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ashima 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 Ashima 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 Ashima 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 Ashima 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 Ashima Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
