SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ebro Foods (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ebro Foods is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ebro Foods can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ebro Foods, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ebro Foods
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ebro Foods
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ebro Foods
Strengths of Ebro Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ebro Foods are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ebro Foods has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ebro Foods 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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Ebro Foods is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ebro Foods in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ebro Foods digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ebro Foods 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ebro Foods is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Ebro Foods 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ebro Foods has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ebro Foods 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.
Training and development
– Ebro Foods 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Ebro Foods is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Ebro Foods 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 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Ebro Foods is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ebro Foods 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ebro Foods
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ebro Foods does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Ebro Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ebro Foods are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ebro Foods, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ebro Foods is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Ebro Foods needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ebro Foods to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ebro Foods products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ebro Foods 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 Food Processing industry, Ebro Foods 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ebro Foods 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ebro Foods, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ebro Foods has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ebro Foods 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Ebro Foods needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Ebro Foods supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ebro Foods is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ebro Foods vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Ebro Foods ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ebro Foods is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ebro Foods Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ebro Foods are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ebro Foods 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ebro Foods can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Ebro Foods 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ebro Foods 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ebro Foods 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ebro Foods can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ebro Foods 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, Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ebro Foods can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ebro Foods operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ebro Foods 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
– Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ebro Foods to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ebro Foods has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Ebro Foods to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ebro Foods products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ebro Foods in the Food Processing industry. Now Ebro Foods can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Ebro Foods External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ebro Foods are -
Increasing wage structure of Ebro Foods
– 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 Ebro Foods.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ebro Foods 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
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. Ebro Foods needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ebro Foods 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ebro Foods may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
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. Ebro Foods can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Ebro Foods with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ebro Foods 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.
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 Ebro Foods in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ebro Foods has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ebro Foods needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ebro Foods Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods 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 Ebro Foods needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
