Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fishing Republic PLC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fishing Republic PLC
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fishing Republic PLC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fishing Republic PLC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fishing Republic PLC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fishing Republic PLC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fishing Republic PLC
Strengths of Fishing Republic PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fishing Republic PLC are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fishing Republic PLC has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fishing Republic PLC have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Fishing Republic PLC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fishing Republic PLC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fishing Republic PLC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fishing Republic PLC is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Fishing Republic PLC is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in United Kingdom. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in United Kingdom but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Fishing Republic PLC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fishing Republic PLC in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Fishing Republic PLC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fishing Republic PLC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fishing Republic PLC staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fishing Republic PLC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fishing Republic PLC is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Learning organization
- Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fishing Republic PLC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Weaknesses of Fishing Republic PLC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fishing Republic PLC are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Fishing Republic PLC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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 dependence on Fishing Republic PLC ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fishing Republic PLC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fishing Republic PLC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United Kingdom, Fishing Republic PLC 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 Food Processing industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Fishing Republic PLC strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fishing Republic PLC, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fishing Republic PLC has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fishing Republic PLC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Fishing Republic PLC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fishing Republic PLC to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fishing Republic PLC is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fishing Republic PLC 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United Kingdom, Fishing Republic PLC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Fishing Republic PLC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fishing Republic PLC are -
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. Fishing Republic PLC can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fishing Republic PLC 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. Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Fishing Republic PLC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fishing Republic PLC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Fishing Republic PLC can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fishing Republic PLC 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 Food Processing industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fishing Republic PLC in the Food Processing industry. Now Fishing Republic PLC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Fishing Republic PLC 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fishing Republic PLC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fishing Republic PLC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fishing Republic PLC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fishing Republic PLC are -
Regulatory challenges
– Fishing Republic PLC 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
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 wage structure of Fishing Republic PLC
– 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 Fishing Republic PLC.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Fishing Republic PLC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Fishing Republic PLC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Environmental challenges
– Fishing Republic PLC needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Fishing Republic PLC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fishing Republic PLC 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.
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 Fishing Republic PLC in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fishing Republic PLC in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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 Fishing Republic PLC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fishing Republic PLC 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 Food Processing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fishing Republic PLC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fishing Republic PLC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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 Fishing Republic PLC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC 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 Fishing Republic PLC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.