Vilmorin&Cie (0HJC) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Crops
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Vilmorin&Cie (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Vilmorin&Cie is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Vilmorin&Cie can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Vilmorin&Cie, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Vilmorin&Cie
2. Improving business portfolio management of Vilmorin&Cie
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Vilmorin&Cie
Strengths of Vilmorin&Cie | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Vilmorin&Cie are -
Training and development
– Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Vilmorin&Cie in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Vilmorin&Cie is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Vilmorin&Cie 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Vilmorin&Cie is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Vilmorin&Cie in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Vilmorin&Cie comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Vilmorin&Cie is one of the leading players in the Crops 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Vilmorin&Cie is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Vilmorin&Cie has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Vilmorin&Cie to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Vilmorin&Cie to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Vilmorin&Cie in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Vilmorin&Cie has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Vilmorin&Cie to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Vilmorin&Cie digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Weaknesses of Vilmorin&Cie | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Vilmorin&Cie are -
Need for greater diversity
– Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Vilmorin&Cie is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Vilmorin&Cie vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Vilmorin&Cie, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Vilmorin&Cie has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Vilmorin&Cie lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Vilmorin&Cie is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Vilmorin&Cie to provide better information regarding Crops products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Vilmorin&Cie is just above the Crops 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Vilmorin&Cie needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Vilmorin&Cie can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Vilmorin&Cie is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Vilmorin&Cie is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Vilmorin&Cie needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Vilmorin&Cie to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Vilmorin&Cie has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Vilmorin&Cie should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Vilmorin&Cie 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Vilmorin&Cie has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Vilmorin&Cie Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Vilmorin&Cie are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Vilmorin&Cie has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Vilmorin&Cie to build a more holistic ecosystem for Vilmorin&Cie products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Vilmorin&Cie can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Vilmorin&Cie in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Vilmorin&Cie 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 Crops industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Vilmorin&Cie can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Vilmorin&Cie can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Vilmorin&Cie operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Vilmorin&Cie can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Crops 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Vilmorin&Cie 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 Crops industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Vilmorin&Cie has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Vilmorin&Cie to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Vilmorin&Cie to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Vilmorin&Cie is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Vilmorin&Cie can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Vilmorin&Cie can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Vilmorin&Cie External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Vilmorin&Cie are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Vilmorin&Cie 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
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. Vilmorin&Cie 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.
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 Vilmorin&Cie.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Vilmorin&Cie 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie prominent markets.
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. Vilmorin&Cie needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Vilmorin&Cie in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Vilmorin&Cie can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Vilmorin&Cie has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Vilmorin&Cie needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Vilmorin&Cie is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Vilmorin&Cie
– 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 Vilmorin&Cie.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Vilmorin&Cie Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie 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 Vilmorin&Cie needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
