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 – technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
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.
Analytics focus
– Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops 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.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Citrus Plant5-L is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Citrus Plant5-L in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Citrus Plant5-L is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Citrus Plant5-L has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Organizational Resilience of Citrus Plant5-L
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Citrus Plant5-L does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Citrus Plant5-L has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Citrus Plant5-L to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Citrus Plant5-L emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Citrus Plant5-L has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Citrus Plant5-L 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.
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Citrus Plant5-L, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Citrus Plant5-L has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
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.
Skills based hiring in Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Citrus Plant5-L has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Citrus Plant5-L is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Loyalty marketing
– Citrus Plant5-L 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Citrus Plant5-L to increase its market reach. Citrus Plant5-L 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, 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.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Citrus Plant5-L can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Citrus Plant5-L in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Citrus Plant5-L 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 Citrus Plant5-L to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Citrus Plant5-L can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
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 -
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Citrus Plant5-L with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops 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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Citrus Plant5-L.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Citrus Plant5-L 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. Citrus Plant5-L can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Citrus Plant5-L in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Citrus Plant5-L 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
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.