Berlina (BRNA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Containers & Packaging
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Berlina (Indonesia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Berlina is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Berlina can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Berlina, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Berlina 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 Berlina can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Berlina
2. Improving business portfolio management of Berlina
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Indonesia
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Berlina
Strengths of Berlina | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Berlina are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Berlina is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry in Indonesia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Indonesia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Berlina has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Berlina to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Berlina 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 Berlina is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Berlina emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Berlina in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Berlina has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Berlina to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Berlina has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Berlina 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Containers & Packaging industry
– Berlina is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Berlina 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 Containers & Packaging industry. The technology infrastructure of Indonesia 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Berlina has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Containers & Packaging industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Berlina have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Berlina
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Berlina does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Containers & Packaging industry
– Berlina has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Berlina to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Berlina to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Berlina in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Berlina comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Weaknesses of Berlina | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Berlina are -
Employees’ less understanding of Berlina strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Berlina 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Berlina has high operating costs in the Containers & Packaging industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Berlina lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Berlina, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Containers & Packaging 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 Containers & Packaging industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Indonesia, Berlina 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Berlina has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry over the last five years. Berlina 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Berlina 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Berlina needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Containers & Packaging industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Berlina can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Berlina is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Berlina is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Indonesia, Berlina needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Berlina has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Berlina should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Berlina supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Berlina is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Berlina vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Berlina Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Berlina are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Berlina 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Berlina has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Containers & Packaging sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Berlina to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Berlina to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Berlina can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Berlina operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Containers & Packaging sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Berlina 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Berlina 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 Berlina to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Berlina can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Berlina has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Containers & Packaging industry. This can help Berlina to build a more holistic ecosystem for Berlina products in the Containers & Packaging industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Berlina 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 Berlina to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Berlina 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Berlina is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Berlina can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Berlina 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Berlina can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Containers & Packaging sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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 Berlina 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.
Threats Berlina External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Berlina are -
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Berlina has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Containers & Packaging industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Berlina needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Containers & Packaging 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 Berlina 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Containers & Packaging industry are lowering. It can presents Berlina with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Containers & Packaging sector.
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. Berlina needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Containers & Packaging industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Berlina 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
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 Berlina.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Berlina 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 Berlina prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Berlina 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Berlina 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Berlina 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 Containers & Packaging industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Berlina in Containers & Packaging industry. The Containers & Packaging 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 Berlina Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Berlina 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 Berlina 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 Berlina 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 Berlina 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 Berlina needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.