GRENDENE ON (GRND3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Footwear
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GRENDENE ON (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GRENDENE ON is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GRENDENE ON can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GRENDENE ON, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GRENDENE ON
2. Improving business portfolio management of GRENDENE ON
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Footwear sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GRENDENE ON
Strengths of GRENDENE ON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GRENDENE ON are -
Training and development
– GRENDENE ON has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High brand equity
– GRENDENE ON has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled GRENDENE ON to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Footwear industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For GRENDENE ON digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. GRENDENE ON has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GRENDENE ON has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Footwear industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GRENDENE ON have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Footwear industry
– GRENDENE ON has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled GRENDENE ON to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Footwear industry. The sustainable margins have also helped GRENDENE ON to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Footwear
– GRENDENE ON is one of the leading players in the Footwear industry in Brazil. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Footwear industry in Brazil but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GRENDENE ON in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– GRENDENE ON 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 Footwear industry. The technology infrastructure of Brazil is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GRENDENE ON comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Footwear 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
- GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GRENDENE ON emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– GRENDENE ON is one of the leading players in the Footwear industry in Brazil. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Brazil. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Footwear industry
– GRENDENE ON is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– GRENDENE ON has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – GRENDENE ON staying ahead in the Footwear industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of GRENDENE ON | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GRENDENE ON are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of GRENDENE ON, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Footwear 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of GRENDENE ON products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GRENDENE ON needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As GRENDENE ON is one of the leading players in the Footwear industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Footwear industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, GRENDENE ON is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help GRENDENE ON to provide better information regarding Footwear products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of GRENDENE ON is just above the Footwear industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that GRENDENE ON needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Footwear industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at GRENDENE ON can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as GRENDENE ON is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, GRENDENE ON has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Footwear industry, GRENDENE ON 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.
Skills based hiring in Footwear industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at GRENDENE ON 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, GRENDENE ON has high operating costs in the Footwear industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract GRENDENE ON lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– GRENDENE ON 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.
GRENDENE ON Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GRENDENE ON are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for GRENDENE ON to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Footwear industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. GRENDENE ON can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, GRENDENE ON 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.
Buying journey improvements
– GRENDENE ON can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Footwear 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.
Loyalty marketing
– GRENDENE ON 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects GRENDENE ON can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, GRENDENE ON is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. GRENDENE ON can utilize new technology in the field of Footwear industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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, GRENDENE ON can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that GRENDENE ON operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Footwear sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help GRENDENE ON to increase its market reach. GRENDENE ON 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 Footwear industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for GRENDENE ON in the Footwear industry. Now GRENDENE ON can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– GRENDENE ON can develop new processes and procedures in Footwear 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– GRENDENE ON 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.
Threats GRENDENE ON External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GRENDENE ON are -
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 GRENDENE ON.
Consumer confidence and its impact on GRENDENE ON 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 Footwear industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON prominent markets.
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 GRENDENE ON business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– GRENDENE ON 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.
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. GRENDENE ON 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Footwear industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. GRENDENE ON can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– GRENDENE ON 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 Footwear 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 GRENDENE ON in the Footwear sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– GRENDENE ON 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. GRENDENE ON can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Footwear industry.
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. GRENDENE ON needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Footwear 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 GRENDENE ON in Footwear industry. The Footwear 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GRENDENE ON Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON 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 GRENDENE ON needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.