Beneteau (0K8N) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Recreational Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beneteau (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beneteau is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beneteau can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beneteau, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beneteau 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 Beneteau can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beneteau
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beneteau
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beneteau
Strengths of Beneteau | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beneteau are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Beneteau 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beneteau has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beneteau 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Beneteau is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Products industry. This has provided Beneteau 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.
Analytics focus
– Beneteau 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 Recreational Products 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Beneteau is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Beneteau has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Beneteau staying ahead in the Recreational Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry
– Beneteau has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beneteau to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beneteau to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Products industry
– Beneteau is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Beneteau 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 Beneteau is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beneteau emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Beneteau in Recreational Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Beneteau has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Beneteau have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Beneteau is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Products sector.
Weaknesses of Beneteau | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beneteau are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Beneteau is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Products industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Beneteau strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Beneteau don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Skills based hiring in Recreational Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beneteau 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Beneteau products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beneteau needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Beneteau is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Products industry, but Beneteau needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beneteau to focus more on services in the Recreational Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Beneteau has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beneteau should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beneteau has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Beneteau has high operating costs in the Recreational Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Beneteau lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Beneteau needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Beneteau can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beneteau is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Beneteau 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Beneteau is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Beneteau to provide better information regarding Recreational Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Beneteau Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beneteau are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beneteau has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Products industry. This can help Beneteau to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beneteau products in the Recreational Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beneteau in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Beneteau can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Products 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beneteau to increase its market reach. Beneteau 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Beneteau 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beneteau can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beneteau in the Recreational Products industry. Now Beneteau can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Beneteau has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Beneteau to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beneteau to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Beneteau 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beneteau can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beneteau operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Products sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Beneteau can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Products 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Beneteau 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 Recreational Products industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beneteau 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 Beneteau 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 Beneteau External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beneteau 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. Beneteau 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beneteau 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 Beneteau prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beneteau in Recreational Products industry. The Recreational Products 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Beneteau 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 Recreational Products industry regulations.
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 Beneteau.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Products industry are lowering. It can presents Beneteau with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Products sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beneteau is facing in Recreational Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beneteau may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Products sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Beneteau 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 Recreational Products industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Beneteau has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Beneteau needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Products 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Beneteau 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 Recreational Products industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Beneteau can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beneteau Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beneteau 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 Beneteau 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 Beneteau 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 Beneteau 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 Beneteau needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.