SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Agritek Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Agritek Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Agritek Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Agritek Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Agritek Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Agritek Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Agritek Holdings
Strengths of Agritek Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Agritek Holdings are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Agritek Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Consumer Financial Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Agritek Holdings 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.
Learning organization
- Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Agritek Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry
– Agritek Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Agritek Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Training and development
– Agritek Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Digital Transformation in Consumer Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Agritek Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Agritek Holdings 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Agritek Holdings 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Agritek Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided Agritek Holdings 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
– Agritek Holdings is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Agritek Holdings in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Agritek Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Agritek Holdings staying ahead in the Consumer Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Agritek Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Agritek Holdings are -
Employees’ less understanding of Agritek Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Agritek Holdings 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Consumer Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Agritek Holdings 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Agritek Holdings has high operating costs in the Consumer Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Agritek Holdings lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Agritek Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Agritek Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Agritek Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Consumer Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Agritek Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Agritek Holdings 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 Consumer Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Agritek Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Agritek Holdings to provide better information regarding Consumer Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Agritek Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Consumer Financial Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Agritek Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Consumer Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Agritek Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Agritek Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, but Agritek Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Agritek Holdings to focus more on services in the Consumer Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Agritek Holdings is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry in last five years.
Agritek Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Agritek Holdings are -
Buying journey improvements
– Agritek Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Consumer Financial Services 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Agritek Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Agritek Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Consumer Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Agritek Holdings 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Agritek Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help Agritek Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Agritek Holdings products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Consumer Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Agritek Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Agritek Holdings in the Consumer Financial Services industry. Now Agritek Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Agritek Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Agritek Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Consumer Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Agritek Holdings 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. Agritek Holdings 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Agritek Holdings to increase its market reach. Agritek Holdings 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.
Threats Agritek Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Agritek Holdings are -
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Consumer Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Agritek Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Consumer Financial Services sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Agritek Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
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. Agritek Holdings 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.
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 Agritek Holdings in the Consumer Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Agritek Holdings
– 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 Agritek Holdings.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Agritek Holdings is facing in Consumer Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Agritek Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Consumer Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Agritek Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Consumer Financial Services 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. Agritek Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Consumer Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Agritek Holdings 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 Consumer Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Consumer Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Agritek Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Agritek Holdings in Consumer Financial Services industry. The Consumer Financial Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Agritek Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings 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 Agritek Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.