SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for FII Cenesp (Brazil)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , FII Cenesp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that FII Cenesp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the FII Cenesp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of FII Cenesp
2. Improving business portfolio management of FII Cenesp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Brazil
4. Making a NA sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of FII Cenesp
Strengths of FII Cenesp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of FII Cenesp are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– FII Cenesp has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – FII Cenesp staying ahead in the NA industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that FII Cenesp 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of FII Cenesp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the NA 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.
Analytics focus
– FII Cenesp 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 NA 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.
Ability to lead change in NA
– FII Cenesp is one of the leading players in the NA industry in Brazil. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the NA industry in Brazil but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled FII Cenesp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the FII Cenesp 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– FII Cenesp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. FII Cenesp 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.
Organizational Resilience of FII Cenesp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing FII Cenesp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of FII Cenesp in NA industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– FII Cenesp is one of the most innovative firm in NA sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– FII Cenesp is one of the leading players in the NA 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.
Training and development
– FII Cenesp has one of the best training and development program in NA 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.
Weaknesses of FII Cenesp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of FII Cenesp are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, FII Cenesp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help FII Cenesp to provide better information regarding NA products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of FII Cenesp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the NA industry, but FII Cenesp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help FII Cenesp to focus more on services in the NA industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of FII Cenesp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact NA 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the NA industry, FII Cenesp 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As FII Cenesp is one of the leading players in the NA industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the NA industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, FII Cenesp 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 NA industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of FII Cenesp is just above the NA 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 NA industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Brazil, FII Cenesp 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 NA industry.
Skills based hiring in NA industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at FII Cenesp 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.
Need for greater diversity
– FII Cenesp 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, FII Cenesp has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the NA industry over the last five years. FII Cenesp even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
FII Cenesp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of FII Cenesp are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for FII Cenesp 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
– FII Cenesp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in NA sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled FII Cenesp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help FII Cenesp 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
– FII Cenesp can develop new processes and procedures in NA 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– FII Cenesp 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.
Buying journey improvements
– FII Cenesp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the NA 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, FII Cenesp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. FII Cenesp can utilize new technology in the field of NA 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 FII Cenesp 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 NA industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help FII Cenesp to increase its market reach. FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the NA industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. FII Cenesp 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. FII Cenesp 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– FII Cenesp 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.
Threats FII Cenesp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of FII Cenesp are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– FII Cenesp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the NA industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, FII Cenesp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the NA 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 FII Cenesp is facing in NA sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– FII Cenesp 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 NA industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, FII Cenesp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of NA sector.
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 FII Cenesp.
Environmental challenges
– FII Cenesp 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. FII Cenesp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the NA industry.
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.
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. FII Cenesp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the NA industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 FII Cenesp in the NA sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to NA industry are lowering. It can presents FII Cenesp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the NA sector.
Regulatory challenges
– FII Cenesp 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 NA industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of FII Cenesp
– 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 FII Cenesp.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of FII Cenesp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp 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 FII Cenesp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.