Ford Motor Co BDR (FDMO34) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ford Motor Co BDR (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ford Motor Co BDR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ford Motor Co BDR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ford Motor Co BDR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ford Motor Co BDR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ford Motor Co BDR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ford Motor Co BDR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ford Motor Co BDR
Strengths of Ford Motor Co BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ford Motor Co BDR are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ford Motor Co BDR in the sector have low bargaining power. Ford Motor Co BDR has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ford Motor Co BDR to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ford Motor Co BDR has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ford Motor Co BDR staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– Ford Motor Co BDR is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ford Motor Co BDR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Ford Motor Co BDR 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of Brazil 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ford Motor Co BDR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ford Motor Co BDR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ford Motor Co BDR 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
– Ford Motor Co BDR has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ford Motor Co BDR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Ford Motor Co BDR has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ford Motor Co BDR to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ford Motor Co BDR to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ford Motor Co BDR are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ford Motor Co BDR needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ford Motor Co BDR can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ford Motor Co BDR is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, Ford Motor Co BDR needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ford Motor Co BDR has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ford Motor Co BDR is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ford Motor Co BDR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ford Motor Co BDR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Ford Motor Co BDR ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ford Motor Co BDR still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ford Motor Co BDR has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ford Motor Co BDR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ford Motor Co BDR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ford Motor Co BDR is just above the 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ford Motor Co BDR has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ford Motor Co BDR lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
Ford Motor Co BDR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ford Motor Co BDR are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Ford Motor Co BDR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
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. Ford Motor Co BDR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ford Motor Co BDR has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Ford Motor Co BDR to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ford Motor Co BDR products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Ford Motor Co BDR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ford Motor Co BDR to increase its market reach. Ford Motor Co BDR will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ford Motor Co BDR in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ford Motor Co BDR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ford Motor Co BDR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ford Motor Co BDR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ford Motor Co BDR 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. Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
Threats Ford Motor Co BDR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ford Motor Co BDR are -
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 Ford Motor Co BDR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Ford Motor Co BDR 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. Ford Motor Co BDR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ford Motor Co BDR 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 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 Ford Motor Co BDR.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR prominent markets.
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 industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ford Motor Co BDR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Ford Motor Co BDR
– 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 Ford Motor Co BDR.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ford Motor Co BDR has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ford Motor Co BDR needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ford Motor Co BDR 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ford Motor Co BDR is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Ford Motor Co BDR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ford Motor Co BDR 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 industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ford Motor Co BDR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR 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 Ford Motor Co BDR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.