SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Camil Alimentos (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Camil Alimentos is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices,
geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Camil Alimentos can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Camil Alimentos, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Camil Alimentos
2. Improving business portfolio management of Camil Alimentos
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Camil Alimentos
Strengths of Camil Alimentos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Camil Alimentos are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Camil Alimentos in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Camil Alimentos has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Camil Alimentos to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Camil Alimentos
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Camil Alimentos does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Camil Alimentos has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Camil Alimentos staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Camil Alimentos has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Camil Alimentos have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Camil Alimentos 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Camil Alimentos is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Camil Alimentos in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Camil Alimentos comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Camil Alimentos 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.
High brand equity
– Camil Alimentos has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Camil Alimentos to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Camil Alimentos is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Learning organization
- Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Camil Alimentos emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Camil Alimentos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Camil Alimentos are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Camil Alimentos has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Camil Alimentos lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Camil Alimentos is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Camil Alimentos is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Camil Alimentos needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Camil Alimentos to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Camil Alimentos is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Camil Alimentos to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Camil Alimentos ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Camil Alimentos still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Camil Alimentos has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Camil Alimentos, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Camil Alimentos has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Camil Alimentos has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Camil Alimentos has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Camil Alimentos should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Camil Alimentos 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Camil Alimentos 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Camil Alimentos, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Camil Alimentos Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Camil Alimentos are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Camil Alimentos has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Camil Alimentos to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Camil Alimentos to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Camil Alimentos can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Camil Alimentos can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Camil Alimentos operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Camil Alimentos 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Camil Alimentos is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Camil Alimentos can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Camil Alimentos can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Camil Alimentos in the Food Processing industry. Now Camil Alimentos can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Camil Alimentos 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 Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Camil Alimentos can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Camil Alimentos can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Camil Alimentos 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. Camil Alimentos 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.
Threats Camil Alimentos External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Camil Alimentos are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Camil Alimentos 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
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. Camil Alimentos 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.
Increasing wage structure of Camil Alimentos
– 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 Camil Alimentos.
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.
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.
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 Camil Alimentos.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Camil Alimentos has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Camil Alimentos needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Camil Alimentos may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Camil Alimentos 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Camil Alimentos is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Camil Alimentos 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Camil Alimentos in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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 Camil Alimentos in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Camil Alimentos Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos 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 Camil Alimentos needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.