Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Amira Nature Fds is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Amira Nature Fds can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Amira Nature Fds, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Amira Nature Fds
2. Improving business portfolio management of Amira Nature Fds
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Amira Nature Fds
Strengths of Amira Nature Fds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Amira Nature Fds are -
Organizational Resilience of Amira Nature Fds
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Amira Nature Fds does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Amira Nature Fds is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Amira Nature Fds 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Amira Nature Fds in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Amira Nature Fds has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Amira Nature Fds to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Amira Nature Fds is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Amira Nature Fds 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Amira Nature Fds has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Amira Nature Fds to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Amira Nature Fds to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Amira Nature Fds has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Amira Nature Fds 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.
Learning organization
- Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Amira Nature Fds emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Amira Nature Fds is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Analytics focus
– Amira Nature Fds 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Amira Nature Fds is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Amira Nature Fds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Amira Nature Fds are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Amira Nature Fds 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Amira Nature Fds is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Amira Nature Fds needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Amira Nature Fds to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Amira Nature Fds 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. Amira Nature Fds should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Amira Nature Fds ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Amira Nature Fds 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.
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 Amira Nature Fds supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Amira Nature Fds is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Amira Nature Fds vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Amira Nature Fds is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Amira Nature Fds 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Amira Nature Fds 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.
Amira Nature Fds Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Amira Nature Fds are -
Manufacturing automation
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
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 Amira Nature Fds in the Food Processing industry. Now Amira Nature Fds can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Amira Nature Fds 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Amira Nature Fds has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Amira Nature Fds to build a more holistic ecosystem for Amira Nature Fds products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Amira Nature Fds to increase its market reach. Amira Nature Fds 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Amira Nature Fds can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Amira Nature Fds 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.
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. Amira Nature Fds 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. Amira Nature Fds 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Amira Nature Fds 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Amira Nature Fds 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Amira Nature Fds External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Amira Nature Fds are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Amira Nature Fds with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing 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 Amira Nature Fds.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Amira Nature Fds 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Amira Nature Fds is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Amira Nature Fds 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.
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 Amira Nature Fds in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Amira Nature Fds has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Amira Nature Fds 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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Amira Nature Fds business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Amira Nature Fds 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 Food Processing industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Amira Nature Fds 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds 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 Amira Nature Fds needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.