National Steel Agro Ind (NTST) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for National Steel Agro Ind (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , National Steel Agro Ind is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of National Steel Agro Ind
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that National Steel Agro Ind can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the National Steel Agro Ind, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of National Steel Agro Ind
2. Improving business portfolio management of National Steel Agro Ind
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of National Steel Agro Ind
Strengths of National Steel Agro Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of National Steel Agro Ind are -
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– National Steel Agro Ind is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– National Steel Agro Ind has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled National Steel Agro Ind to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped National Steel Agro Ind to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– National Steel Agro Ind has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– National Steel Agro Ind has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Analytics focus
– National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of National Steel Agro Ind in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of National Steel Agro Ind
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing National Steel Agro Ind does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at National Steel Agro Ind emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– National Steel Agro Ind has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of National Steel Agro Ind have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For National Steel Agro Ind digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– National Steel Agro Ind is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled National Steel Agro Ind in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of National Steel Agro Ind | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of National Steel Agro Ind are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that National Steel Agro Ind needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at National Steel Agro Ind can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as National Steel Agro Ind is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Employees’ less understanding of National Steel Agro Ind strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of National Steel Agro Ind don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, National Steel Agro Ind 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of National Steel Agro Ind supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, National Steel Agro Ind is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left National Steel Agro Ind vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, National Steel Agro Ind has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry over the last five years. National Steel Agro Ind 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
National Steel Agro Ind has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of National Steel Agro Ind is just above the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
High dependence on National Steel Agro Ind ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of National Steel Agro Ind still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though National Steel Agro Ind has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
National Steel Agro Ind Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of National Steel Agro Ind are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– National Steel Agro Ind has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled National Steel Agro Ind to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help National Steel Agro Ind to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for National Steel Agro Ind in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. National Steel Agro Ind 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. National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects National Steel Agro Ind can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help National Steel Agro Ind to increase its market reach. National Steel Agro Ind 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.
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 National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– National Steel Agro Ind can develop new processes and procedures in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of National Steel Agro Ind has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can help National Steel Agro Ind to build a more holistic ecosystem for National Steel Agro Ind products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, National Steel Agro Ind 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
– National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Buying journey improvements
– National Steel Agro Ind can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Threats National Steel Agro Ind External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of National Steel Agro Ind are -
Increasing wage structure of National Steel Agro Ind
– 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 National Steel Agro Ind.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for National Steel Agro Ind in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Regulatory challenges
– National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on National Steel Agro Ind 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– National Steel Agro Ind has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, National Steel Agro Ind needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents National Steel Agro Ind with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
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.
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. National Steel Agro Ind 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. National Steel Agro Ind can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– National Steel Agro Ind 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. National Steel Agro Ind can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that National Steel Agro Ind is facing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 National Steel Agro Ind business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of National Steel Agro Ind Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind 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 National Steel Agro Ind needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.