SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bram Indus (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bram Indus is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bram Indus can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bram Indus, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bram Indus
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bram Indus
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bram Indus
Strengths of Bram Indus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bram Indus are -
Innovation driven organization
– Bram Indus is one of the most innovative firm in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bram Indus has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bram Indus have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bram Indus is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Bram Indus 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.
Ability to lead change in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
– Bram Indus is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Bram Indus in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bram Indus 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bram Indus 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.
Analytics focus
– Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The technology infrastructure of Israel 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bram Indus in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Bram Indus has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bram Indus to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Bram Indus has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bram Indus to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bram Indus to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Bram Indus
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bram Indus does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bram Indus digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bram Indus 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.
Weaknesses of Bram Indus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bram Indus are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bram Indus is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but Bram Indus needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bram Indus to focus more on services in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Bram Indus strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bram Indus 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bram Indus is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
High dependence on Bram Indus ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bram Indus still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bram Indus has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Bram Indus, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, Bram Indus needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Bram Indus supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Bram Indus is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Bram Indus vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bram Indus has some of the most successful models in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Bram Indus should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bram Indus has high operating costs in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bram Indus lucrative customers.
Bram Indus Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bram Indus are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bram Indus 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bram Indus to increase its market reach. Bram Indus 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bram Indus can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bram Indus operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bram Indus can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Bram Indus can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bram Indus 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.
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 Bram Indus 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bram Indus has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bram Indus to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bram Indus to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Bram Indus 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, Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bram Indus can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bram Indus in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bram Indus has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Bram Indus to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bram Indus products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Bram Indus External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bram Indus are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bram Indus in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
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. Bram Indus needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bram Indus has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bram Indus needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bram Indus is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bram Indus 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry regulations.
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 Bram Indus in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Bram Indus 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. Bram Indus can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
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. Bram Indus 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bram Indus 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bram Indus Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus 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 Bram Indus needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
