COTEMINAS (CTNM3) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Textiles - Non Apparel
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for COTEMINAS (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , COTEMINAS is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that COTEMINAS can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the COTEMINAS, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of COTEMINAS
2. Improving business portfolio management of COTEMINAS
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a Textiles - Non Apparel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of COTEMINAS
Strengths of COTEMINAS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of COTEMINAS are -
Innovation driven organization
– COTEMINAS is one of the most innovative firm in Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Organizational Resilience of COTEMINAS
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing COTEMINAS does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– COTEMINAS has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – COTEMINAS staying ahead in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For COTEMINAS digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. COTEMINAS 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.
Training and development
– COTEMINAS 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of COTEMINAS comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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
- COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at COTEMINAS emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– COTEMINAS has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled COTEMINAS to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– COTEMINAS is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– COTEMINAS 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 Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– COTEMINAS has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. COTEMINAS 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of COTEMINAS in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. COTEMINAS has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps COTEMINAS to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of COTEMINAS | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of COTEMINAS are -
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 COTEMINAS supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, COTEMINAS is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left COTEMINAS vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As COTEMINAS is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though COTEMINAS has some of the most successful models in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. COTEMINAS should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, COTEMINAS is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help COTEMINAS to provide better information regarding Textiles - Non Apparel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, COTEMINAS 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, COTEMINAS needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of COTEMINAS is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, but COTEMINAS needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help COTEMINAS to focus more on services in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that COTEMINAS needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at COTEMINAS can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as COTEMINAS is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– COTEMINAS 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry, COTEMINAS 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at COTEMINAS 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.
COTEMINAS Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of COTEMINAS are -
Manufacturing automation
– COTEMINAS can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help COTEMINAS to increase its market reach. COTEMINAS 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. COTEMINAS 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. COTEMINAS 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.
Loyalty marketing
– COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for COTEMINAS in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Now COTEMINAS can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– COTEMINAS can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– COTEMINAS 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.
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. COTEMINAS can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, COTEMINAS is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. COTEMINAS can utilize new technology in the field of Textiles - Non Apparel industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of COTEMINAS has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This can help COTEMINAS to build a more holistic ecosystem for COTEMINAS products in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at COTEMINAS 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help COTEMINAS to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats COTEMINAS External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of COTEMINAS are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Textiles - Non Apparel industry are lowering. It can presents COTEMINAS with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS
– 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 COTEMINAS.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– COTEMINAS has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, COTEMINAS needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that COTEMINAS is facing in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS prominent markets.
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. COTEMINAS needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– COTEMINAS 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. COTEMINAS can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, COTEMINAS may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Textiles - Non Apparel 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 COTEMINAS.
Consumer confidence and its impact on COTEMINAS 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of COTEMINAS Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS 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 COTEMINAS needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.