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 – 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, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , 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 -
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.
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.
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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
High brand equity
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bhandari Hosiery Exports to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal 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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bhandari Hosiery Exports have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bhandari Hosiery Exports digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 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.
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 -
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.
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.
High dependence on Bhandari Hosiery Exports ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bhandari Hosiery Exports still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Apparel/Accessories industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bhandari Hosiery Exports has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Bhandari Hosiery Exports needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bhandari Hosiery Exports can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bhandari Hosiery Exports is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bhandari Hosiery Exports is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bhandari Hosiery Exports to provide better information regarding Apparel/Accessories products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bhandari Hosiery Exports has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Bhandari Hosiery Exports should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bhandari Hosiery Exports is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.
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.
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 -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bhandari Hosiery Exports has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Apparel/Accessories industry. This can help Bhandari Hosiery Exports to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bhandari Hosiery Exports products in the Apparel/Accessories industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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.
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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bhandari Hosiery Exports can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bhandari Hosiery Exports in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
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.
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.
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. Bhandari Hosiery Exports 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.
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 wage structure of Bhandari Hosiery Exports
– 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 Bhandari Hosiery Exports.
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.
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.
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.