Yee Lee Corp (YLEE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Yee Lee Corp (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Yee Lee Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Yee Lee Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yee Lee Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Yee Lee Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yee Lee Corp
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 Yee Lee Corp
Strengths of Yee Lee Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yee Lee Corp are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Yee Lee Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Yee Lee Corp 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 recruit top talent
– Yee Lee Corp is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Yee Lee Corp in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Yee Lee Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Yee Lee Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Yee Lee Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Yee Lee Corp 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.
Learning organization
- Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Yee Lee Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Yee Lee Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Yee Lee Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Yee Lee Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Yee Lee Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yee Lee Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Yee Lee Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Analytics focus
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Yee Lee Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yee Lee Corp in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Yee Lee Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Yee Lee Corp are -
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Yee Lee Corp 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Yee Lee Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Yee Lee Corp 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. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Yee Lee Corp, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Yee Lee Corp 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, Yee Lee Corp 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, Yee Lee Corp has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Yee Lee Corp lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Yee Lee Corp, 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Yee Lee Corp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Yee Lee Corp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Yee Lee Corp to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Yee Lee Corp 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Yee Lee Corp 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.
Yee Lee Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Yee Lee Corp are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Yee Lee Corp 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Yee Lee Corp to increase its market reach. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Yee Lee Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yee Lee Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Yee Lee Corp 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, Yee Lee Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
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. Yee Lee Corp 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. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Yee Lee Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Yee Lee Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Yee Lee Corp products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Yee Lee Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Yee Lee Corp are -
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. Yee Lee Corp 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Yee Lee Corp 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.
Increasing wage structure of Yee Lee Corp
– 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 Yee Lee Corp.
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 Yee Lee Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Yee Lee Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Yee Lee Corp.
Regulatory challenges
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Yee Lee Corp is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Yee Lee Corp 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Yee Lee Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Yee Lee Corp 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Yee Lee Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
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 Yee Lee Corp in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yee Lee Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp 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 Yee Lee Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.