SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Narmada Agrobase (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Narmada Agrobase is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Narmada Agrobase can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Narmada Agrobase, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Narmada Agrobase
2. Improving business portfolio management of Narmada Agrobase
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Narmada Agrobase
Strengths of Narmada Agrobase | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Narmada Agrobase are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Narmada Agrobase is one of the leading players in the 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Narmada Agrobase has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Narmada Agrobase have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Narmada Agrobase in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Narmada Agrobase
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Narmada Agrobase does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Narmada Agrobase has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Narmada Agrobase is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Narmada Agrobase digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Narmada Agrobase 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
– Narmada Agrobase has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Narmada Agrobase to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Narmada Agrobase is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Narmada Agrobase a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Narmada Agrobase is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Narmada Agrobase has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Narmada Agrobase staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Narmada Agrobase has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Narmada Agrobase are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Narmada Agrobase 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 industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Narmada Agrobase needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Narmada Agrobase 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Narmada Agrobase 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.
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 Narmada Agrobase supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Narmada Agrobase is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Narmada Agrobase vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Narmada Agrobase is just above the 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Narmada Agrobase has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Narmada Agrobase should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Narmada Agrobase needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Narmada Agrobase can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Narmada Agrobase is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Narmada Agrobase, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Narmada Agrobase has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Narmada Agrobase ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Narmada Agrobase still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Narmada Agrobase has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Narmada Agrobase 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.
Narmada Agrobase Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Narmada Agrobase are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Narmada Agrobase is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Narmada Agrobase can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Narmada Agrobase 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Narmada Agrobase 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Narmada Agrobase can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Narmada Agrobase 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Narmada Agrobase in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Narmada Agrobase has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Narmada Agrobase to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Narmada Agrobase to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Narmada Agrobase to increase its market reach. Narmada Agrobase 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Narmada Agrobase 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Narmada Agrobase 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 industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Narmada Agrobase can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Narmada Agrobase External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Narmada Agrobase are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Narmada Agrobase may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Narmada Agrobase is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Narmada Agrobase 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.
Environmental challenges
– Narmada Agrobase 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. Narmada Agrobase can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
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 Narmada Agrobase business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
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 Narmada Agrobase in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Narmada Agrobase.
Increasing wage structure of Narmada Agrobase
– 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 Narmada Agrobase.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Narmada Agrobase can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Narmada Agrobase in industry. The 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Narmada Agrobase Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase 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 Narmada Agrobase needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.