SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Citrus Plant5-L (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Citrus Plant5-L is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Citrus Plant5-L can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Citrus Plant5-L, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Citrus Plant5-L
2. Improving business portfolio management of Citrus Plant5-L
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Citrus Plant5-L
Strengths of Citrus Plant5-L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Citrus Plant5-L are -
Innovation driven organization
– Citrus Plant5-L is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Training and development
– Citrus Plant5-L has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Citrus Plant5-L in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Citrus Plant5-L has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Citrus Plant5-L to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Citrus Plant5-L has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Crops industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Citrus Plant5-L have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Citrus Plant5-L has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Citrus Plant5-L to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Citrus Plant5-L to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Citrus Plant5-L comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Citrus Plant5-L has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Citrus Plant5-L staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Citrus Plant5-L in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Citrus Plant5-L is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Citrus Plant5-L digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Citrus Plant5-L are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Israel, Citrus Plant5-L needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Citrus Plant5-L 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Citrus Plant5-L has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Citrus Plant5-L lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Citrus Plant5-L is just above the Crops 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 Citrus Plant5-L, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Crops industry, Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Citrus Plant5-L strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Citrus Plant5-L needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Citrus Plant5-L can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Citrus Plant5-L is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Citrus Plant5-L is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Citrus Plant5-L to provide better information regarding Crops products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Citrus Plant5-L has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry.
Citrus Plant5-L Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Citrus Plant5-L are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry.
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. Citrus Plant5-L can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Citrus Plant5-L has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Citrus Plant5-L to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Citrus Plant5-L to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Citrus Plant5-L has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Citrus Plant5-L to build a more holistic ecosystem for Citrus Plant5-L products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Crops industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Citrus Plant5-L in the Crops industry. Now Citrus Plant5-L can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Citrus Plant5-L can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Citrus Plant5-L operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Citrus Plant5-L can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Crops 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Crops industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Citrus Plant5-L can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Citrus Plant5-L 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. Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Threats Citrus Plant5-L External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Citrus Plant5-L are -
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. Citrus Plant5-L needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Citrus Plant5-L
– 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 Citrus Plant5-L.
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 Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Citrus Plant5-L is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Citrus Plant5-L may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Crops sector.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Citrus Plant5-L 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.
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 Citrus Plant5-L in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Citrus Plant5-L can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Citrus Plant5-L Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
