SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Anglo-Eastern Plantations (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Anglo-Eastern Plantations is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, technology disruption,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Anglo-Eastern Plantations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Anglo-Eastern Plantations can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Anglo-Eastern Plantations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Anglo-Eastern Plantations
2. Improving business portfolio management of Anglo-Eastern Plantations
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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations
Strengths of Anglo-Eastern Plantations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Anglo-Eastern Plantations are -
Learning organization
- Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Anglo-Eastern Plantations emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Anglo-Eastern Plantations to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Anglo-Eastern Plantations
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Anglo-Eastern Plantations does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Anglo-Eastern Plantations in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Anglo-Eastern Plantations staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Weaknesses of Anglo-Eastern Plantations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Anglo-Eastern Plantations are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Crops industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Anglo-Eastern Plantations, 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, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Anglo-Eastern Plantations, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Anglo-Eastern Plantations has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Anglo-Eastern Plantations is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Anglo-Eastern Plantations to provide better information regarding Crops 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Anglo-Eastern Plantations is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Anglo-Eastern Plantations has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Anglo-Eastern Plantations Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Anglo-Eastern Plantations are -
Manufacturing automation
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Anglo-Eastern Plantations is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Anglo-Eastern Plantations can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Anglo-Eastern Plantations operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Anglo-Eastern Plantations can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Anglo-Eastern Plantations can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Anglo-Eastern Plantations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Anglo-Eastern Plantations are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Crops industry.
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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Anglo-Eastern Plantations
– 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations.
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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Anglo-Eastern Plantations has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations prominent markets.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Anglo-Eastern Plantations in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Anglo-Eastern Plantations with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Anglo-Eastern Plantations is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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. Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations 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 Anglo-Eastern Plantations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
