Prima Meat Packers (2281) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Prima Meat Packers (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Prima Meat Packers is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Prima Meat Packers

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Prima Meat Packers can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Prima Meat Packers, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Prima Meat Packers 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Prima Meat Packers can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Prima Meat Packers
2. Improving business portfolio management of Prima Meat Packers
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Prima Meat Packers

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Strengths of Prima Meat Packers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Prima Meat Packers are -

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Prima Meat Packers digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Prima Meat Packers 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.

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Prima Meat Packers is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers 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.

Organizational Resilience of Prima Meat Packers

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Prima Meat Packers does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Prima Meat Packers is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Prima Meat Packers has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Prima Meat Packers 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Prima Meat Packers comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.

Training and development

– Prima Meat Packers 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.

Learning organization

- Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Prima Meat Packers emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Prima Meat Packers in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– Prima Meat Packers has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Prima Meat Packers to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Diverse revenue streams

– Prima Meat Packers is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Prima Meat Packers 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.

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Weaknesses of Prima Meat Packers | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Prima Meat Packers are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Prima Meat Packers is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Prima Meat Packers has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Prima Meat Packers, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Prima Meat Packers has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Need for greater diversity

– Prima Meat Packers 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Prima Meat Packers needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Prima Meat Packers has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Prima Meat Packers lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Prima Meat Packers 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Prima Meat Packers is just above the Food Processing 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Prima Meat Packers 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.

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 Prima Meat Packers supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Prima Meat Packers is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Prima Meat Packers vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Prima Meat Packers products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Prima Meat Packers needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

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Prima Meat Packers Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Prima Meat Packers are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Prima Meat Packers is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Prima Meat Packers can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Prima Meat Packers to increase its market reach. Prima Meat Packers 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Prima Meat Packers in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Prima Meat Packers has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Prima Meat Packers to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Prima Meat Packers to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Prima Meat Packers 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Prima Meat Packers has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Prima Meat Packers to build a more holistic ecosystem for Prima Meat Packers products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Manufacturing automation

– Prima Meat Packers can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.

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. Prima Meat Packers can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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 Prima Meat Packers 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Prima Meat Packers 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Prima Meat Packers 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Prima Meat Packers can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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Threats Prima Meat Packers External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Prima Meat Packers are -

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 Prima Meat Packers business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Environmental challenges

– Prima Meat Packers 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. Prima Meat Packers can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Prima Meat Packers is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Prima Meat Packers 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 Food Processing industry.

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 Prima Meat Packers.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers prominent markets.

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. Prima Meat Packers needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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. Prima Meat Packers 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Prima Meat Packers with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Prima Meat Packers 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 Food Processing industry regulations.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Prima Meat Packers 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Prima Meat Packers has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Prima Meat Packers needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.

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 Prima Meat Packers in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Prima Meat Packers Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers 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 Prima Meat Packers needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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