SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Excelsior Alimentos Pref (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Excelsior Alimentos Pref is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Excelsior Alimentos Pref
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Excelsior Alimentos Pref can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Excelsior Alimentos Pref, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Excelsior Alimentos Pref
2. Improving business portfolio management of Excelsior Alimentos Pref
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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref
Strengths of Excelsior Alimentos Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Excelsior Alimentos Pref are -
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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)
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Organizational Resilience of Excelsior Alimentos Pref
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Excelsior Alimentos Pref does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Excelsior Alimentos Pref to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Excelsior Alimentos Pref to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Excelsior Alimentos Pref emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Excelsior Alimentos Pref to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Brazil. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Brazil but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Excelsior Alimentos Pref in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Weaknesses of Excelsior Alimentos Pref | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Excelsior Alimentos Pref are -
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Excelsior Alimentos Pref, 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Excelsior Alimentos Pref strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Excelsior Alimentos Pref is just above the Food Processing 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, Excelsior Alimentos Pref is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Food Processing industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Brazil, Excelsior Alimentos Pref needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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. Excelsior Alimentos Pref should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Excelsior Alimentos Pref ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Excelsior Alimentos Pref needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Excelsior Alimentos Pref can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Excelsior Alimentos Pref is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Excelsior Alimentos Pref Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Excelsior Alimentos Pref are -
Manufacturing automation
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Excelsior Alimentos Pref to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Food Processing industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Excelsior Alimentos Pref to increase its market reach. Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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. Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Excelsior Alimentos Pref in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Excelsior Alimentos Pref can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Excelsior Alimentos Pref operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Excelsior Alimentos Pref are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Excelsior Alimentos Pref is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Excelsior Alimentos Pref with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Environmental challenges
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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. Excelsior Alimentos Pref can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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. Excelsior Alimentos Pref needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Excelsior Alimentos Pref
– 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref.
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.
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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Excelsior Alimentos Pref Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref 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 Excelsior Alimentos Pref needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
