SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Banaras Beads Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Banaras Beads Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Banaras Beads Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Banaras Beads Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Banaras Beads Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Banaras Beads Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Banaras Beads Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Textiles - Non Apparel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Banaras Beads Ltd
Strengths of Banaras Beads Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Banaras Beads Ltd are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Banaras Beads Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Banaras Beads Ltd staying ahead in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Banaras Beads Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Banaras Beads 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.
High brand equity
– Banaras Beads Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Banaras Beads Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Banaras Beads Ltd in Textiles - Non Apparel industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Banaras Beads Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Banaras Beads Ltd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Banaras Beads Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Banaras Beads Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Banaras Beads Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Banaras Beads Ltd is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in India. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in India. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Banaras Beads 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– Banaras Beads Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Banaras Beads Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Banaras Beads Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Banaras Beads 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.
Analytics focus
– Banaras Beads 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 Textiles - Non Apparel 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 Banaras Beads Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Banaras Beads Ltd are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Banaras Beads Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, but Banaras Beads Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Banaras Beads Ltd to focus more on services in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Banaras Beads 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, Banaras Beads 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Banaras Beads Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Textiles - Non Apparel industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Banaras Beads Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Banaras Beads Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Banaras Beads Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Textiles - Non Apparel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Banaras Beads Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Banaras Beads Ltd is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Banaras Beads Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Banaras Beads Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Banaras Beads 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Banaras Beads Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Banaras Beads Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Banaras Beads Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Banaras Beads Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Banaras Beads Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Banaras Beads Ltd is just above the Textiles - Non Apparel industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Banaras Beads Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Banaras Beads Ltd are -
Buying journey improvements
– Banaras Beads Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Banaras Beads 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Textiles - Non Apparel industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Banaras Beads Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Banaras Beads Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Banaras Beads Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Banaras Beads Ltd in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Now Banaras Beads Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Banaras Beads Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This can help Banaras Beads Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Banaras Beads Ltd products in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Banaras Beads Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Banaras Beads 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Banaras Beads Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Banaras Beads Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Banaras Beads Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Banaras Beads 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. Banaras Beads 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Banaras Beads 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.
Threats Banaras Beads Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Banaras Beads Ltd are -
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 Banaras Beads Ltd in the Textiles - Non Apparel sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 Banaras Beads Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Banaras Beads Ltd needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Banaras Beads 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.
Increasing wage structure of Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads Ltd.
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. Banaras Beads 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Banaras Beads Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Banaras Beads Ltd in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. The Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Textiles - Non Apparel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Banaras Beads Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Banaras Beads Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Banaras Beads Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Banaras Beads Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Banaras Beads Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads 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 Banaras Beads Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.