SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jindal Photo Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jindal Photo Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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 Jindal Photo Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jindal Photo Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jindal Photo Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jindal Photo Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Photography sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jindal Photo Ltd
Strengths of Jindal Photo Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jindal Photo Ltd are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jindal Photo 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.
Learning organization
- Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jindal Photo Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jindal Photo Ltd in Photography industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Jindal Photo 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jindal Photo Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jindal Photo Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Photography industry. This has provided Jindal Photo Ltd a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Photography industry
– Jindal Photo Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jindal Photo Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Photography industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jindal Photo Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jindal Photo Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jindal Photo 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jindal Photo Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jindal Photo Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jindal Photo Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Photography industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Jindal Photo Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Jindal Photo 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 Photography 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.
Ability to lead change in Photography
– Jindal Photo Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Photography industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jindal Photo Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Jindal Photo Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jindal Photo Ltd are -
Need for greater diversity
– Jindal Photo 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jindal Photo Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Photography industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jindal Photo Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Photography industry, but Jindal Photo Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jindal Photo Ltd to focus more on services in the Photography industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jindal Photo Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jindal Photo Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jindal Photo 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jindal Photo Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Photography 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jindal Photo Ltd has high operating costs in the Photography industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jindal Photo Ltd lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Jindal Photo Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jindal Photo 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, Jindal Photo 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 Photography industry over the last five years. Jindal Photo 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jindal Photo Ltd is just above the Photography 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jindal Photo Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Photography industry using digital technology.
Jindal Photo Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jindal Photo Ltd are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jindal Photo 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jindal Photo 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jindal Photo 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jindal Photo Ltd to increase its market reach. Jindal Photo 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Photography industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jindal Photo Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Jindal Photo Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Photography 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jindal Photo Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jindal Photo Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Photography industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Jindal Photo 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jindal Photo Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Photography 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.
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. Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jindal Photo Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Photography industry. This can help Jindal Photo Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jindal Photo Ltd products in the Photography industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Photography industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jindal Photo 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. Jindal Photo 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.
Threats Jindal Photo Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jindal Photo Ltd are -
Regulatory challenges
– Jindal Photo 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 Photography industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jindal Photo Ltd in Photography industry. The Photography 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.
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. Jindal Photo 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jindal Photo 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 Photography industry and other sectors.
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 Jindal Photo Ltd.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Photography industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jindal Photo Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Photography industry are lowering. It can presents Jindal Photo Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Photography sector.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo Ltd prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jindal Photo 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 Photography sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jindal Photo 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 Photography industry.
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 Jindal Photo Ltd in the Photography sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jindal Photo Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo 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 Jindal Photo Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.