SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bhandari Hosiery Exports (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bhandari Hosiery Exports is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bhandari Hosiery Exports
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bhandari Hosiery Exports can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bhandari Hosiery Exports, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bhandari Hosiery Exports
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bhandari Hosiery Exports
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bhandari Hosiery Exports
Strengths of Bhandari Hosiery Exports | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bhandari Hosiery Exports are -
Innovation driven organization
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bhandari Hosiery Exports in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Bhandari Hosiery Exports has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bhandari Hosiery Exports to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bhandari Hosiery Exports emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry. The technology infrastructure of India is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bhandari Hosiery Exports in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bhandari Hosiery Exports comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bhandari Hosiery Exports to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bhandari Hosiery Exports to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bhandari Hosiery Exports staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Training and development
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Weaknesses of Bhandari Hosiery Exports | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bhandari Hosiery Exports are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bhandari Hosiery Exports has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry over the last five years. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bhandari Hosiery Exports, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bhandari Hosiery Exports has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bhandari Hosiery Exports is just above the Apparel/Accessories 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Bhandari Hosiery Exports, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Apparel/Accessories 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Bhandari Hosiery Exports strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Bhandari Hosiery Exports products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Bhandari Hosiery Exports Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bhandari Hosiery Exports are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bhandari Hosiery Exports in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
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. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Bhandari Hosiery Exports in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now Bhandari Hosiery Exports can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bhandari Hosiery Exports is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bhandari Hosiery Exports can utilize new technology in the field of Apparel/Accessories industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bhandari Hosiery Exports to increase its market reach. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bhandari Hosiery Exports can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Apparel/Accessories sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bhandari Hosiery Exports to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bhandari Hosiery Exports to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Bhandari Hosiery Exports External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bhandari Hosiery Exports are -
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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bhandari Hosiery Exports is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Apparel/Accessories industry are lowering. It can presents Bhandari Hosiery Exports with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bhandari Hosiery Exports can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bhandari Hosiery Exports may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.
Environmental challenges
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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. Bhandari Hosiery Exports can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
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. Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
