Swallowfield (SWL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal & Household Prods.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Swallowfield (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Swallowfield is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Swallowfield can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Swallowfield, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Swallowfield
2. Improving business portfolio management of Swallowfield
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Personal & Household Prods. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Swallowfield
Strengths of Swallowfield | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Swallowfield are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Swallowfield has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Swallowfield 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Swallowfield is one of the most innovative firm in Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Swallowfield has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal & Household Prods. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Swallowfield have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Swallowfield
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Swallowfield does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Swallowfield 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– Swallowfield has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Swallowfield to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Swallowfield to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Swallowfield has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Swallowfield to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Swallowfield comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Swallowfield is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This has provided Swallowfield 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Swallowfield in Personal & Household Prods. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Swallowfield 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Swallowfield in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Swallowfield has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Swallowfield to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Swallowfield | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Swallowfield are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Swallowfield 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Swallowfield is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Swallowfield 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Swallowfield has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, Swallowfield 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Swallowfield has some of the most successful models in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Swallowfield should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Swallowfield products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Swallowfield needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Swallowfield, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Swallowfield strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Swallowfield 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Swallowfield needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal & Household Prods. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Swallowfield can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Swallowfield is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Swallowfield ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Swallowfield still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal & Household Prods. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Swallowfield has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Swallowfield Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Swallowfield are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Swallowfield can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Swallowfield in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Swallowfield can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Swallowfield in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. Now Swallowfield can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal & Household Prods. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Swallowfield 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. Swallowfield 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Swallowfield can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal & Household Prods. 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
– Swallowfield can develop new processes and procedures in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal & Household Prods. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Swallowfield can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Swallowfield to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Buying journey improvements
– Swallowfield can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Swallowfield are -
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 Swallowfield.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Swallowfield in Personal & Household Prods. industry. The Personal & Household Prods. 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, Swallowfield may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Swallowfield has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Swallowfield needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
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 Swallowfield in the Personal & Household Prods. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal & Household Prods. industry are lowering. It can presents Swallowfield with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Increasing wage structure of Swallowfield
– 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 Swallowfield.
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 Swallowfield business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal & Household Prods. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Swallowfield can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Swallowfield 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
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, Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield prominent markets.
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. Swallowfield 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Swallowfield Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield 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 Swallowfield needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.