Inghams Group (ING) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Inghams Group (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Inghams Group is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Inghams Group

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Inghams Group can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Inghams Group, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Inghams Group
2. Improving business portfolio management of Inghams Group
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Inghams Group

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Strengths of Inghams Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Inghams Group are -

Analytics focus

– Inghams Group 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 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.

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Inghams Group 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.

Organizational Resilience of Inghams Group

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Inghams Group 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

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

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Inghams Group is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Innovation driven organization

– Inghams Group is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

High brand equity

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Inghams Group in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Inghams Group has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Inghams Group to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Learning organization

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

Highly skilled collaborators

– Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Inghams Group 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.

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Weaknesses of Inghams Group | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Inghams Group are -

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Inghams Group is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Inghams Group to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Inghams Group has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Inghams Group 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.

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

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Australia, Inghams Group needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Inghams Group 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.

High dependence on Inghams Group ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Inghams Group has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Inghams Group should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Inghams Group 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Inghams Group 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.

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Inghams Group Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Inghams Group are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Inghams Group can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Inghams Group can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Inghams Group operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Inghams Group is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Inghams Group 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Inghams Group to build a more holistic ecosystem for Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Inghams Group 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Inghams Group 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Inghams Group to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Inghams Group 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.

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. Inghams Group 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. Inghams Group 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Inghams Group 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.

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Threats Inghams Group External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Inghams Group are -

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. Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Increasing wage structure of Inghams Group

– 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 Inghams Group.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Inghams Group 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.

Shortening product life cycle

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

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.

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

Environmental challenges

– Inghams Group 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. Inghams Group can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors 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. Inghams Group 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, Inghams Group 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 Inghams Group prominent markets.

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 Inghams Group in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Inghams Group has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Inghams Group 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.

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 Inghams Group.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Inghams Group Template, Example

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

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