SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Harrisons Malayalam Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Harrisons Malayalam Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd
Strengths of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Organizational Resilience of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Harrisons Malayalam Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Harrisons Malayalam Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Analytics focus
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd 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 Crops 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Harrisons Malayalam Ltd staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Harrisons Malayalam Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Harrisons Malayalam Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd are -
Need for greater diversity
– Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Harrisons Malayalam Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Harrisons Malayalam 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 Crops industry over the last five years. Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Harrisons Malayalam Ltd to provide better information regarding Crops products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Crops industry, Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Harrisons Malayalam Ltd to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Harrisons Malayalam Ltd lucrative customers.
Harrisons Malayalam Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Harrisons Malayalam Ltd 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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Harrisons Malayalam Ltd to increase its market reach. Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Harrisons Malayalam 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. Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Harrisons Malayalam 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 Crops industry.
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 Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Harrisons Malayalam 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 Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Harrisons Malayalam 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.
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. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Harrisons Malayalam Ltd 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
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Crops industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Harrisons Malayalam Ltd in the Crops industry. Now Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Harrisons Malayalam Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Harrisons Malayalam Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Harrisons Malayalam Ltd is facing in Crops 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 Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Harrisons Malayalam 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. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Harrisons Malayalam 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 Crops industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Harrisons Malayalam 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 Crops industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Harrisons Malayalam 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Harrisons Malayalam Ltd in Crops industry. The Crops 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. Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam 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 Harrisons Malayalam Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.