SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for ShreeOswal Seeds (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , ShreeOswal Seeds is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that ShreeOswal Seeds can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the ShreeOswal Seeds, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of ShreeOswal Seeds
2. Improving business portfolio management of ShreeOswal Seeds
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 ShreeOswal Seeds
Strengths of ShreeOswal Seeds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of ShreeOswal Seeds are -
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– ShreeOswal Seeds is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– ShreeOswal Seeds has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Training and development
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Organizational Resilience of ShreeOswal Seeds
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing ShreeOswal Seeds does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
High brand equity
– ShreeOswal Seeds has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled ShreeOswal Seeds to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For ShreeOswal Seeds digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of ShreeOswal Seeds comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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 ShreeOswal Seeds in the sector have low bargaining power. ShreeOswal Seeds has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps ShreeOswal Seeds to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– ShreeOswal Seeds is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of ShreeOswal Seeds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of ShreeOswal Seeds are -
Need for greater diversity
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
ShreeOswal Seeds has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as ShreeOswal Seeds is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at ShreeOswal Seeds, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. ShreeOswal Seeds has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on ShreeOswal Seeds ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of ShreeOswal Seeds still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though ShreeOswal Seeds has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, ShreeOswal Seeds is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help ShreeOswal Seeds to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of ShreeOswal Seeds strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As ShreeOswal Seeds is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
ShreeOswal Seeds Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of ShreeOswal Seeds are -
Buying journey improvements
– ShreeOswal Seeds can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help ShreeOswal Seeds to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. ShreeOswal Seeds can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, ShreeOswal Seeds can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that ShreeOswal Seeds operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– ShreeOswal Seeds can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects ShreeOswal Seeds 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
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
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. ShreeOswal Seeds can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for ShreeOswal Seeds in the industry. Now ShreeOswal Seeds can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats ShreeOswal Seeds External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of ShreeOswal Seeds are -
Environmental challenges
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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. ShreeOswal Seeds can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on ShreeOswal Seeds 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 industry and other sectors.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– ShreeOswal Seeds has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, ShreeOswal Seeds needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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. ShreeOswal Seeds can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents ShreeOswal Seeds with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds prominent markets.
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. ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
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 ShreeOswal Seeds.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, ShreeOswal Seeds 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– ShreeOswal Seeds 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 industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of ShreeOswal Seeds Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds 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 ShreeOswal Seeds needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.