Brimstone Invest N (BRNJn) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Brimstone Invest N (South Africa)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Brimstone Invest N is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Brimstone Invest N

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Brimstone Invest N can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Brimstone Invest N, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Brimstone Invest N 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Brimstone Invest N can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Brimstone Invest N
2. Improving business portfolio management of Brimstone Invest N
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Brimstone Invest N

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Strengths of Brimstone Invest N | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Brimstone Invest N are -

Training and development

– Brimstone Invest N has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-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 switching costs

– The high switching costs that Brimstone Invest N has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry

– Brimstone Invest N has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Brimstone Invest N to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Brimstone Invest N to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Brimstone Invest N in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Brimstone Invest N has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Brimstone Invest N to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Brimstone Invest N comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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.

High brand equity

– Brimstone Invest N has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Brimstone Invest N to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock

– Brimstone Invest N is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Brimstone Invest N in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Brimstone Invest N

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Brimstone Invest N does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Learning organization

- Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Brimstone Invest N emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Brimstone Invest N 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Brimstone Invest N is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in South Africa. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Africa. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Brimstone Invest N has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Brimstone Invest N staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Brimstone Invest N | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Brimstone Invest N are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Brimstone Invest N, in the dynamic environment of Fish/Livestock industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Brimstone Invest N has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Need for greater diversity

– Brimstone Invest N 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Brimstone Invest N is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Brimstone Invest N needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Brimstone Invest N to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Brimstone Invest N has high operating costs in the Fish/Livestock industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Brimstone Invest N lucrative customers.

Employees’ less understanding of Brimstone Invest N strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Brimstone Invest N 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 strategic competitive environment developments

– As Brimstone Invest N is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, Brimstone Invest N 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Brimstone Invest N, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fish/Livestock 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Brimstone Invest N 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of South Africa, Brimstone Invest N needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Brimstone Invest N has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Brimstone Invest N 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.

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Brimstone Invest N Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Brimstone Invest N are -

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Brimstone Invest N is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Brimstone Invest N can utilize new technology in the field of Fish/Livestock industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Brimstone Invest N 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Brimstone Invest N can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Brimstone Invest N in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Brimstone Invest N can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Brimstone Invest N 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Brimstone Invest N 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Loyalty marketing

– Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fish/Livestock industry. This can help Brimstone Invest N to build a more holistic ecosystem for Brimstone Invest N products in the Fish/Livestock industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Brimstone Invest N can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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. Brimstone Invest N can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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Threats Brimstone Invest N External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Brimstone Invest N are -

Regulatory challenges

– Brimstone Invest N 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Brimstone Invest N 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Brimstone Invest N in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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

– Brimstone Invest N 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. Brimstone Invest N can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Brimstone Invest N may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fish/Livestock sector.

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 Brimstone Invest N.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Brimstone Invest N with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Brimstone Invest N 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Fish/Livestock industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Brimstone Invest N 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. Brimstone Invest N 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Brimstone Invest N has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Brimstone Invest N needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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.

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. Brimstone Invest N needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fish/Livestock industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Brimstone Invest N Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N 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 Brimstone Invest N needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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