Silver Life (9262) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Silver Life (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Silver Life is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices,
there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Silver Life can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Silver Life, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Silver Life 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 Silver Life can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Silver Life
2. Improving business portfolio management of Silver Life
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 Silver Life
Strengths of Silver Life | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Silver Life are -
Learning organization
- Silver Life 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 Silver Life is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Silver Life emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Silver Life in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Silver Life has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Silver Life to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Silver Life has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Silver Life 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Silver Life 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.
Analytics focus
– Silver Life 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Silver Life is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Silver Life 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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Silver Life digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Silver Life 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Silver Life is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Organizational Resilience of Silver Life
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Silver Life does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Silver Life is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Silver Life 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.
Weaknesses of Silver Life | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Silver Life are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Silver Life 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 Food Processing industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Silver Life 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.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Silver Life 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 Silver Life 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Silver Life needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Silver Life needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Silver Life can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Silver Life is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Silver Life 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Silver Life 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 Silver Life lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Silver Life 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 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 Silver Life supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Silver Life is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Silver Life vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Silver Life products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Silver Life needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Silver Life Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Silver Life are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Silver Life 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 Food Processing industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Silver Life can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Silver Life operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Silver Life can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Silver Life to increase its market reach. Silver Life 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 Silver Life 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Silver Life 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 Silver Life to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Silver Life 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Silver Life is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Silver Life 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Silver Life 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 Silver Life to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Silver Life has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Silver Life to build a more holistic ecosystem for Silver Life products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Silver Life 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Silver Life 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Silver Life 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. Silver Life 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 Silver Life External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Silver Life are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Silver Life with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
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
– Silver Life has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Silver Life 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Silver Life 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.
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 Silver Life in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Silver Life is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Silver Life 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 Silver Life prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Silver Life
– 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 Silver Life.
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. Silver Life can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Silver Life 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
– Silver Life 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.
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 Silver Life business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Silver Life Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Silver Life 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 Silver Life 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 Silver Life 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 Silver Life 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 Silver Life needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.