SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Crookes Brothers Ltd (South Africa)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Crookes Brothers Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Crookes Brothers Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Crookes Brothers Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crookes Brothers Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Crookes Brothers Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crookes Brothers Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Africa
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crookes Brothers Ltd
Strengths of Crookes Brothers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crookes Brothers Ltd are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Crookes Brothers Ltd staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Crookes Brothers Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Crookes Brothers Ltd 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
– Crookes Brothers Ltd is one of the leading players in the Crops 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Crookes Brothers Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Crookes Brothers Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Crookes Brothers Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Crookes Brothers Ltd is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in South Africa. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in South Africa but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Crookes Brothers Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of Crookes Brothers Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Crookes Brothers Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Crookes Brothers Ltd in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Crops industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Crookes Brothers Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Crookes Brothers Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Crookes Brothers Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crookes Brothers Ltd are -
Need for greater diversity
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
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 Crookes Brothers Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Crookes Brothers Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crookes Brothers Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Crookes Brothers Ltd is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Crookes Brothers Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Crookes Brothers Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Crookes Brothers Ltd to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Crookes Brothers Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Crookes Brothers Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Crookes Brothers Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Crookes Brothers Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Crookes Brothers Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Crookes Brothers Ltd has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Crookes Brothers Ltd lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Crookes Brothers Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.
Skills based hiring in Crops industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crookes Brothers Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Crookes Brothers Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Crookes Brothers Ltd are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Crookes Brothers Ltd 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. Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Crookes Brothers Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Crookes Brothers Ltd products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Crookes Brothers Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Crookes Brothers Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Crookes Brothers Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Crookes Brothers Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Crookes Brothers Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Crops industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Crookes Brothers Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Crookes Brothers Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Crookes Brothers Ltd to increase its market reach. Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Crookes Brothers Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Crops 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.
Threats Crookes Brothers Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Crookes Brothers Ltd are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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.
Increasing wage structure of Crookes Brothers Ltd
– 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Crookes Brothers Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Crookes Brothers Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Crookes Brothers Ltd is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crops industry.
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 Crookes Brothers Ltd.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Crookes Brothers Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Crookes Brothers Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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, Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd prominent markets.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crops industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Crookes Brothers Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Crookes Brothers Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd 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 Crookes Brothers Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.