Barak Valley Cements Ltd (BAVA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction - Raw Materials
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Barak Valley Cements Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Barak Valley Cements Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Barak Valley Cements Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Barak Valley Cements Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Barak Valley Cements Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Barak Valley Cements Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Barak Valley Cements Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Barak Valley Cements Ltd
Strengths of Barak Valley Cements Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Barak Valley Cements Ltd are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction - Raw Materials industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Barak Valley Cements Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Barak Valley Cements 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Barak Valley Cements Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Barak Valley Cements Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Barak Valley Cements Ltd 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This has provided Barak Valley Cements 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Barak Valley Cements Ltd in Construction - Raw Materials industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Barak Valley Cements Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Barak Valley Cements Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Barak Valley Cements Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Construction - Raw Materials
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Barak Valley Cements 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
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Barak Valley Cements Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Barak Valley Cements Ltd in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Barak Valley Cements Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Barak Valley Cements Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Weaknesses of Barak Valley Cements Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Barak Valley Cements Ltd are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, Barak Valley Cements 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Barak Valley Cements Ltd has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Barak Valley Cements Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction - Raw Materials 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Barak Valley Cements Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Barak Valley Cements Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction - Raw Materials industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Barak Valley Cements Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Barak Valley Cements Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Barak Valley Cements Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Construction - Raw Materials industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Barak Valley Cements Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Barak Valley Cements Ltd has high operating costs in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Barak Valley Cements Ltd lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Barak Valley Cements Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Barak Valley Cements 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry over the last five years. Barak Valley Cements 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Barak Valley Cements Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Barak Valley Cements 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.
Barak Valley Cements Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Barak Valley Cements Ltd are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Barak Valley Cements Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Barak Valley Cements Ltd 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Barak Valley Cements 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Barak Valley Cements Ltd in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. Now Barak Valley Cements Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Barak Valley Cements Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Barak Valley Cements Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Barak Valley Cements Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Barak Valley Cements 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Barak Valley Cements Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Barak Valley Cements Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Barak Valley Cements Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Construction - Raw Materials 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 Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Barak Valley Cements Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Barak Valley Cements Ltd are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Barak Valley Cements Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Barak Valley Cements Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry.
Increasing wage structure of Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Barak Valley Cements Ltd is facing in Construction - Raw Materials sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials sector.
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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction - Raw Materials industry are lowering. It can presents Barak Valley Cements Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction - Raw Materials sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Barak Valley Cements 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Barak Valley Cements 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 Construction - Raw Materials industry regulations.
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.
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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd in the Construction - Raw Materials sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Barak Valley Cements 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Barak Valley Cements Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements 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 Barak Valley Cements Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
