SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gretex Industries (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gretex Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing,
increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Gretex Industries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gretex Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gretex Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gretex Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gretex Industries
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 Gretex Industries
Strengths of Gretex Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gretex Industries are -
Ability to lead change in
– Gretex Industries is one of the leading players in the industry in India. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in India but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Gretex Industries in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Gretex Industries
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gretex Industries does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Gretex Industries 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gretex Industries in the sector have low bargaining power. Gretex Industries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gretex Industries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Gretex Industries 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Gretex Industries in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Gretex Industries has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gretex Industries to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gretex Industries to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Gretex Industries is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Gretex Industries 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.
Learning organization
- Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Gretex Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Gretex Industries 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
– Gretex Industries 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 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 Gretex Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gretex Industries are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gretex Industries 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Gretex Industries is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Gretex Industries 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, Gretex Industries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Gretex Industries is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Gretex Industries needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Gretex Industries to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Gretex Industries, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Gretex Industries has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gretex Industries 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Gretex Industries still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Gretex Industries has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gretex Industries 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Gretex Industries is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Gretex Industries to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Gretex Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gretex Industries are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Gretex Industries 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gretex Industries 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Gretex Industries 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. Gretex Industries 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, Gretex Industries 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gretex Industries 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.
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 Gretex Industries 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Gretex Industries 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gretex Industries 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Gretex Industries 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gretex Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gretex Industries 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.
Threats Gretex Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries in the sector and impact the bottomline 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. Gretex Industries can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gretex Industries 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Gretex Industries 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.
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. Gretex Industries needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gretex Industries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gretex Industries 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.
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 Gretex Industries business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Gretex Industries 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gretex Industries 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.
Increasing wage structure of Gretex Industries
– 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 Gretex Industries.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gretex Industries Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries 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 Gretex Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.