SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BioNitrogen Holdings (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BioNitrogen Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BioNitrogen Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BioNitrogen Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BioNitrogen Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BioNitrogen Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of BioNitrogen Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of BioNitrogen Holdings
Strengths of BioNitrogen Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BioNitrogen Holdings are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– BioNitrogen Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BioNitrogen Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BioNitrogen Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BioNitrogen 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.
High brand equity
– BioNitrogen Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BioNitrogen Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of BioNitrogen Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BioNitrogen Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– BioNitrogen Holdings 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 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.
Learning organization
- BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at BioNitrogen Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– BioNitrogen 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– BioNitrogen Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided BioNitrogen 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.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BioNitrogen Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BioNitrogen 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.
Ability to lead change in
– BioNitrogen Holdings is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled BioNitrogen Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of BioNitrogen Holdings in the sector have low bargaining power. BioNitrogen Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps BioNitrogen Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BioNitrogen Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BioNitrogen Holdings staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of BioNitrogen Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BioNitrogen Holdings are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, BioNitrogen Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. BioNitrogen Holdings 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As BioNitrogen Holdings is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of BioNitrogen Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BioNitrogen 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of BioNitrogen Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BioNitrogen Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BioNitrogen Holdings to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– BioNitrogen Holdings 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.
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 BioNitrogen Holdings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, BioNitrogen Holdings is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left BioNitrogen Holdings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
BioNitrogen Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of BioNitrogen Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, BioNitrogen Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though BioNitrogen Holdings has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. BioNitrogen Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BioNitrogen Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at BioNitrogen Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BioNitrogen Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
BioNitrogen Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BioNitrogen Holdings are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– BioNitrogen Holdings 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. BioNitrogen Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 BioNitrogen Holdings 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.
Buying journey improvements
– BioNitrogen Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects BioNitrogen Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of BioNitrogen Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help BioNitrogen Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for BioNitrogen Holdings products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– BioNitrogen 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BioNitrogen 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 industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. BioNitrogen 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. BioNitrogen 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for BioNitrogen Holdings in the industry. Now BioNitrogen Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BioNitrogen Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BioNitrogen 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BioNitrogen Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled BioNitrogen Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BioNitrogen Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats BioNitrogen Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BioNitrogen Holdings are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. BioNitrogen Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– BioNitrogen Holdings 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 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 BioNitrogen Holdings in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BioNitrogen 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 sector.
Regulatory challenges
– BioNitrogen Holdings 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 industry regulations.
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 BioNitrogen Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to industry are lowering. It can presents BioNitrogen Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BioNitrogen Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BioNitrogen Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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.
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. BioNitrogen 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BioNitrogen 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 industry and other sectors.
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 BioNitrogen Holdings.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BioNitrogen Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen 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 BioNitrogen Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
