SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Thai Beverage (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Thai Beverage is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Thai Beverage can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Thai Beverage, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Thai Beverage
2. Improving business portfolio management of Thai Beverage
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Beverages (Alcoholic) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Thai Beverage
Strengths of Thai Beverage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Thai Beverage are -
Organizational Resilience of Thai Beverage
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Thai Beverage does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Thai Beverage has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Thai Beverage to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Thai Beverage is one of the most innovative firm in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Thai Beverage comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Thai Beverage has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Thai Beverage have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Thai Beverage is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Thai Beverage emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– Thai Beverage is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Thai Beverage has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Thai Beverage 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– Thai Beverage has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Thai Beverage to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Thai Beverage to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Thai Beverage | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thai Beverage are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Thai Beverage has some of the most successful models in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Thai Beverage should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Thai Beverage is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage, in the dynamic environment of Beverages (Alcoholic) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Thai Beverage has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Thai Beverage 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Thai Beverage needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Thai Beverage can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Thai Beverage is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Thai Beverage, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Thai Beverage strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Thai Beverage 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Thai Beverage is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Thai Beverage to provide better information regarding Beverages (Alcoholic) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Thai Beverage ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Thai Beverage still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Thai Beverage has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Thai Beverage has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry over the last five years. Thai Beverage 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.
Thai Beverage Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Thai Beverage are -
Loyalty marketing
– Thai Beverage 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
– Thai Beverage can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Thai Beverage 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Thai Beverage to increase its market reach. Thai Beverage 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Thai Beverage in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Now Thai Beverage can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Thai Beverage in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Thai Beverage 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Thai Beverage has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Thai Beverage to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Thai Beverage to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Thai Beverage can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Thai Beverage operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
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. Thai Beverage 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, Thai Beverage 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Thai Beverage External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Thai Beverage are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Thai Beverage 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Thai Beverage 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry are lowering. It can presents Thai Beverage with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
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 Thai Beverage business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Thai Beverage is facing in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Thai Beverage in the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Thai Beverage in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. The Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Environmental challenges
– Thai Beverage 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. Thai Beverage can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Thai Beverage
– 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 Thai Beverage.
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 Thai Beverage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Thai Beverage 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Thai Beverage Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage 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 Thai Beverage needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.