SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Innoprise Plantations (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Innoprise Plantations is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Innoprise Plantations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Innoprise Plantations can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Innoprise Plantations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Innoprise Plantations
2. Improving business portfolio management of Innoprise Plantations
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Forestry & Wood Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Innoprise Plantations
Strengths of Innoprise Plantations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Innoprise Plantations are -
Organizational Resilience of Innoprise Plantations
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Innoprise Plantations does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Innoprise Plantations 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.
Learning organization
- Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Innoprise Plantations emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Innoprise Plantations has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Innoprise Plantations to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Innoprise Plantations to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Innoprise Plantations in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Innoprise Plantations has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Innoprise Plantations to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Innoprise Plantations has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Innoprise Plantations 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Innoprise Plantations in Forestry & Wood Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Innoprise Plantations is one of the most innovative firm in Forestry & Wood Products sector.
Analytics focus
– Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Innoprise Plantations is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Innoprise Plantations is present in almost all the verticals within the Forestry & Wood Products industry. This has provided Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products
– Innoprise Plantations is one of the leading players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Innoprise Plantations in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Innoprise Plantations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Innoprise Plantations are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Innoprise Plantations is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry, but Innoprise Plantations needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Innoprise Plantations to focus more on services in the Forestry & Wood Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Innoprise Plantations has some of the most successful models in the Forestry & Wood Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Innoprise Plantations should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Malaysia, Innoprise Plantations needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Innoprise Plantations has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Innoprise Plantations strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Forestry & Wood Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Innoprise Plantations can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Innoprise Plantations is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Innoprise Plantations is one of the leading players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Malaysia, Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Innoprise Plantations 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.
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 Innoprise Plantations supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Innoprise Plantations is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Innoprise Plantations vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Innoprise Plantations Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Innoprise Plantations are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Innoprise Plantations to increase its market reach. Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Innoprise Plantations 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Innoprise Plantations has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Forestry & Wood Products industry. This can help Innoprise Plantations to build a more holistic ecosystem for Innoprise Plantations products in the Forestry & Wood Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Innoprise Plantations can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Innoprise Plantations can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Innoprise Plantations 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Innoprise Plantations can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Innoprise Plantations has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Forestry & Wood Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Innoprise Plantations to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Innoprise Plantations to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Innoprise Plantations 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Innoprise Plantations 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.
Threats Innoprise Plantations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Innoprise Plantations are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Innoprise Plantations in Forestry & Wood Products industry. The Forestry & Wood Products 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Forestry & Wood Products industry are lowering. It can presents Innoprise Plantations with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Forestry & Wood Products sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
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 Innoprise Plantations in the Forestry & Wood Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Innoprise Plantations needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Forestry & Wood Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Innoprise Plantations 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry and other sectors.
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 Innoprise Plantations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Innoprise Plantations has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Innoprise Plantations needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Forestry & Wood Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Innoprise Plantations can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Innoprise Plantations 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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Innoprise Plantations
– 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 Innoprise Plantations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Innoprise Plantations Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations 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 Innoprise Plantations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.