Feed One Holdings (2060) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Feed One Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Feed One Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Feed One Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Feed One Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Feed One Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Feed One Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Feed One Holdings
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 Feed One Holdings
Strengths of Feed One Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Feed One Holdings are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Feed One Holdings 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Feed One Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Feed One Holdings 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Feed One Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Feed One Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Feed One Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Feed One Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Feed One Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Feed One Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Feed One Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Feed One Holdings 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.
Organizational Resilience of Feed One Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Feed One Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Feed One Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Feed One Holdings 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Feed One Holdings in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Feed One Holdings 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Feed One Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Feed One Holdings staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Feed One Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Feed One Holdings are -
Employees’ less understanding of Feed One Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Feed One Holdings 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Feed One Holdings 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, Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Feed One Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Feed One Holdings 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Feed One Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Feed One Holdings to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Feed One Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Feed One Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Feed One Holdings 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.
High dependence on Feed One Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Feed One Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Feed One Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Feed One Holdings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Feed One Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Feed One Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Feed One Holdings are -
Loyalty marketing
– Feed One Holdings 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, Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Feed One Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Feed One Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Feed One Holdings products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Feed One Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Feed One Holdings 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Feed One Holdings 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Feed One Holdings 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings 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, Feed One Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Feed One Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Feed One Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Feed One Holdings 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Feed One Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Feed One Holdings 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.
Threats Feed One Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Feed One Holdings are -
Increasing wage structure of Feed One Holdings
– 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 Feed One Holdings.
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 Feed One Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Feed One Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Feed One Holdings 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Feed One Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings prominent markets.
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. Feed One Holdings 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.
Environmental challenges
– Feed One Holdings 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. Feed One Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Feed One Holdings 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.
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 Feed One Holdings in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Feed One Holdings in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Feed One Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Feed One Holdings 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Feed One Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings 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 Feed One Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
