Young & Co’s Brewery (YNGt) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Restaurants
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Young & Co’s Brewery (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Young & Co’s Brewery is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Young & Co’s Brewery
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Young & Co’s Brewery can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Young & Co’s Brewery, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Young & Co’s Brewery
2. Improving business portfolio management of Young & Co’s Brewery
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Young & Co’s Brewery
Strengths of Young & Co’s Brewery | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Young & Co’s Brewery are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants
– Young & Co’s Brewery is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Restaurants industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Young & Co’s Brewery in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Young & Co’s Brewery is one of the leading players in the Restaurants 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Young & Co’s Brewery is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Young & Co’s Brewery is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.
Analytics focus
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Young & Co’s Brewery has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Young & Co’s Brewery staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Young & Co’s Brewery digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Young & Co’s Brewery has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Restaurants industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Young & Co’s Brewery have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry
– Young & Co’s Brewery has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Young & Co’s Brewery to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Young & Co’s Brewery to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Young & Co’s Brewery in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Young & Co’s Brewery has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Young & Co’s Brewery to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Young & Co’s Brewery comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants 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.
Weaknesses of Young & Co’s Brewery | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Young & Co’s Brewery are -
High dependence on Young & Co’s Brewery ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Young & Co’s Brewery still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Restaurants industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Young & Co’s Brewery has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Young & Co’s Brewery products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Young & Co’s Brewery needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Young & Co’s Brewery is just above the Restaurants 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Young & Co’s Brewery, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Young & Co’s Brewery needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Young & Co’s Brewery has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Restaurants industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Young & Co’s Brewery has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Restaurants industry over the last five years. Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Young & Co’s Brewery is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Young & Co’s Brewery needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Young & Co’s Brewery to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Young & Co’s Brewery Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Young & Co’s Brewery are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Young & Co’s Brewery in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Restaurants industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Young & Co’s Brewery can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Restaurants 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Young & Co’s Brewery can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Young & Co’s Brewery can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Young & Co’s Brewery is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Young & Co’s Brewery can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Restaurants industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Young & Co’s Brewery can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Young & Co’s Brewery can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Young & Co’s Brewery operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Young & Co’s Brewery to build a more holistic ecosystem for Young & Co’s Brewery products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Young & Co’s Brewery 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
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Threats Young & Co’s Brewery External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Young & Co’s Brewery are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
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. Young & Co’s Brewery needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Restaurants industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Young & Co’s Brewery 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants industry and other sectors.
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 Young & Co’s Brewery.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Young & Co’s Brewery is facing in Restaurants 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.
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 Young & Co’s Brewery business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Young & Co’s Brewery
– 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 Young & Co’s Brewery.
Regulatory challenges
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Restaurants industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Young & Co’s Brewery 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
– Young & Co’s Brewery has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Young & Co’s Brewery needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants 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 Young & Co’s Brewery Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery 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 Young & Co’s Brewery needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.