SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Malayan Flour Mills (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Malayan Flour Mills is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Malayan Flour Mills
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Malayan Flour Mills can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Malayan Flour Mills, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Malayan Flour Mills
2. Improving business portfolio management of Malayan Flour Mills
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Malayan Flour Mills
Strengths of Malayan Flour Mills | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Malayan Flour Mills are -
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Malayan Flour Mills is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Malayan Flour Mills in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills 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
– Malayan Flour Mills has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Malayan Flour Mills to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Malayan Flour Mills to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Malayan Flour Mills has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Analytics focus
– Malayan Flour Mills 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Malayan Flour Mills in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Malayan Flour Mills has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Malayan Flour Mills to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Malayan Flour Mills is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Malayan Flour Mills digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Organizational Resilience of Malayan Flour Mills
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Malayan Flour Mills does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Malayan Flour Mills | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Malayan Flour Mills are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Malayan Flour Mills has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Malayan Flour Mills should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Malayan Flour Mills supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Malayan Flour Mills is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Malayan Flour Mills vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Malayan Flour Mills is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Malayan Flour Mills to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Malayan Flour Mills strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Malayan Flour Mills can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Malayan Flour Mills is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Malayan Flour Mills has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Malayan Flour Mills has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Malayan Flour Mills needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Malayan Flour Mills Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Malayan Flour Mills are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Malayan Flour Mills has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Malayan Flour Mills to build a more holistic ecosystem for Malayan Flour Mills products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Malayan Flour Mills can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Malayan Flour Mills operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Malayan Flour Mills to increase its market reach. Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Malayan Flour Mills can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Malayan Flour Mills to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Malayan Flour Mills is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Malayan Flour Mills can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Malayan Flour Mills can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Malayan Flour Mills can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
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 Malayan Flour Mills in the Food Processing industry. Now Malayan Flour Mills can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Malayan Flour Mills External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Malayan Flour Mills are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills prominent markets.
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 Malayan Flour Mills in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Malayan Flour Mills 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. Malayan Flour Mills needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Malayan Flour Mills may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Environmental challenges
– Malayan Flour Mills 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. Malayan Flour Mills can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Malayan Flour Mills 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Malayan Flour Mills 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 Food Processing 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 Malayan Flour Mills.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Malayan Flour Mills has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills 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 Malayan Flour Mills needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
