SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Citrus Plt1-L (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Citrus Plt1-L is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
technology disruption, 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 Plt1-L can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Citrus Plt1-L, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Citrus Plt1-L
2. Improving business portfolio management of Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L
Strengths of Citrus Plt1-L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Citrus Plt1-L are -
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Citrus Plt1-L digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Citrus Plt1-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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Citrus Plt1-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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-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.
Innovation driven organization
– Citrus Plt1-L is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Organizational Resilience of Citrus Plt1-L
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Citrus Plt1-L does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Citrus Plt1-L has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Citrus Plt1-L to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Citrus Plt1-L has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Citrus Plt1-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.
Learning organization
- Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Citrus Plt1-L emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Citrus Plt1-L in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Citrus Plt1-L has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Citrus Plt1-L to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Citrus Plt1-L | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Citrus Plt1-L are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Crops industry, Citrus Plt1-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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Citrus Plt1-L products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Citrus Plt1-L needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L lucrative customers.
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 Citrus Plt1-L supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Citrus Plt1-L is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Citrus Plt1-L vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Citrus Plt1-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 dependence on Citrus Plt1-L ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Citrus Plt1-L still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Crops industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Citrus Plt1-L has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Citrus Plt1-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.
Need for greater diversity
– Citrus Plt1-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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Citrus Plt1-L is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Citrus Plt1-L needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Citrus Plt1-L to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Citrus Plt1-L has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Citrus Plt1-L should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Citrus Plt1-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.
Citrus Plt1-L Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Citrus Plt1-L are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Citrus Plt1-L has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Citrus Plt1-L to build a more holistic ecosystem for Citrus Plt1-L products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Citrus Plt1-L is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Citrus Plt1-L can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Plt1-L in the Crops industry. Now Citrus Plt1-L can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Citrus Plt1-L 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.
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 Plt1-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 Plt1-L can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Citrus Plt1-L operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
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 Plt1-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 Plt1-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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Citrus Plt1-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.
Manufacturing automation
– Citrus Plt1-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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Citrus Plt1-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.
Loyalty marketing
– Citrus Plt1-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.
Threats Citrus Plt1-L External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Citrus Plt1-L with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Citrus Plt1-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.
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 Plt1-L can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 wage structure of Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-L.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Citrus Plt1-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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Citrus Plt1-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.
Regulatory challenges
– Citrus Plt1-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.
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 Plt1-L in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Citrus Plt1-L has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Citrus Plt1-L needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Citrus Plt1-L Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Citrus Plt1-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 Plt1-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 Plt1-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 Plt1-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 Plt1-L needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
