SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ushanti Colour Chem (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ushanti Colour Chem is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ushanti Colour Chem
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ushanti Colour Chem can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ushanti Colour Chem, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ushanti Colour Chem
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ushanti Colour Chem
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 Ushanti Colour Chem
Strengths of Ushanti Colour Chem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ushanti Colour Chem are -
Analytics focus
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Ushanti Colour Chem is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Ushanti Colour Chem
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ushanti Colour Chem does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ushanti Colour Chem digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ushanti Colour Chem emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Ushanti Colour Chem has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ushanti Colour Chem to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ushanti Colour Chem to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
High brand equity
– Ushanti Colour Chem has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ushanti Colour Chem to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ushanti Colour Chem 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ushanti Colour Chem are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ushanti Colour Chem, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in India, Ushanti Colour Chem is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Ushanti Colour Chem needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ushanti Colour Chem 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. Ushanti Colour Chem should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ushanti Colour Chem has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ushanti Colour Chem is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but Ushanti Colour Chem needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ushanti Colour Chem to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ushanti Colour Chem products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ushanti Colour Chem needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ushanti Colour Chem has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ushanti Colour Chem lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ushanti Colour Chem, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ushanti Colour Chem has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Ushanti Colour Chem Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ushanti Colour Chem are -
Loyalty marketing
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Ushanti Colour Chem in the industry. Now Ushanti Colour Chem can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ushanti Colour Chem to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
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. Ushanti Colour Chem can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Ushanti Colour Chem can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ushanti Colour Chem to increase its market reach. Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ushanti Colour Chem can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Ushanti Colour Chem External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ushanti Colour Chem are -
Increasing wage structure of Ushanti Colour Chem
– 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 Ushanti Colour Chem.
Environmental challenges
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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. Ushanti Colour Chem can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ushanti Colour Chem is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ushanti Colour Chem needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ushanti Colour Chem has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ushanti Colour Chem 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ushanti Colour Chem 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 industry regulations.
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. Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem 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 Ushanti Colour Chem needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.