Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC
Strengths of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in Australia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Australia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Learning organization
- Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Training and development
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Analytics focus
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Business Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Weaknesses of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is just above the Business Services 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Business Services industry.
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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to increase its market reach. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can develop new processes and procedures in Business Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Business Services industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Threats Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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.
Environmental challenges
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC is facing in Business Services 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, Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Business Services industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Business Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC 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 Roots Sustainable Agricultural DRC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.