SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Marine Harvest (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Marine Harvest is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Marine Harvest can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Marine Harvest, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Marine Harvest
2. Improving business portfolio management of Marine Harvest
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Marine Harvest
Strengths of Marine Harvest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Marine Harvest are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Marine Harvest in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Marine Harvest has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Marine Harvest to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry
– Marine Harvest has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Marine Harvest to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Marine Harvest to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Marine Harvest emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Marine Harvest has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Marine Harvest to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Fish/Livestock industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Marine Harvest digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Marine Harvest 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 recruit top talent
– Marine Harvest is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in United Kingdom. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United Kingdom. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Marine Harvest
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Marine Harvest does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Marine Harvest 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Marine Harvest has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Marine Harvest have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Marine Harvest has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Marine Harvest staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Marine Harvest is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Analytics focus
– Marine Harvest 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 Fish/Livestock industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom 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.
Weaknesses of Marine Harvest | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marine Harvest are -
Skills based hiring in Fish/Livestock industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest is just above the Fish/Livestock 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Marine Harvest is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Marine Harvest to provide better information regarding Fish/Livestock products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Marine Harvest needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fish/Livestock industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Marine Harvest can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Marine Harvest is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Marine Harvest 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Marine Harvest products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Marine Harvest needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, Marine Harvest 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Marine Harvest is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Marine Harvest, in the dynamic environment of Fish/Livestock industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Marine Harvest has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Marine Harvest ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Marine Harvest still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Marine Harvest has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Marine Harvest is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Marine Harvest needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Marine Harvest to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Marine Harvest Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Marine Harvest are -
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. Marine Harvest can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Marine Harvest 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Marine Harvest 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Marine Harvest 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Marine Harvest can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fish/Livestock 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Marine Harvest can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Marine Harvest has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Marine Harvest to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Marine Harvest to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Marine Harvest 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Marine Harvest 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Marine Harvest to increase its market reach. Marine Harvest 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.
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 Marine Harvest 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Marine Harvest External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Marine Harvest are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Marine Harvest demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Marine Harvest
– 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 Marine Harvest.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Marine Harvest with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock 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 Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest in the Fish/Livestock 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 Marine Harvest in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Marine Harvest is facing in Fish/Livestock 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, Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Marine Harvest 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. Marine Harvest can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Marine Harvest 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
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. Marine Harvest 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marine Harvest Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest 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 Marine Harvest needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.