Maple Leaf Foods (MFI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maple Leaf Foods (Canada)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maple Leaf Foods is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maple Leaf Foods

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maple Leaf Foods can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maple Leaf Foods, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Maple Leaf Foods can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maple Leaf Foods
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maple Leaf Foods
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maple Leaf Foods

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Strengths of Maple Leaf Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Maple Leaf Foods are -

Innovation driven organization

– Maple Leaf Foods is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Maple Leaf Foods in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– Maple Leaf Foods has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Maple Leaf Foods to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Learning organization

- Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maple Leaf Foods emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Maple Leaf Foods has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maple Leaf Foods have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Organizational Resilience of Maple Leaf Foods

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maple Leaf Foods does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Maple Leaf Foods is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Maple Leaf Foods has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Maple Leaf Foods is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maple Leaf Foods in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Training and development

– Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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Weaknesses of Maple Leaf Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Maple Leaf Foods are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Maple Leaf Foods has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Maple Leaf Foods 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Maple Leaf Foods products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Maple Leaf Foods needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maple Leaf Foods 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

– Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maple Leaf Foods has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Maple Leaf Foods strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Maple Leaf Foods 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 harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Maple Leaf Foods is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maple Leaf Foods to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

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Maple Leaf Foods Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Maple Leaf Foods are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Maple Leaf Foods can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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. Maple Leaf Foods can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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 Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maple Leaf Foods can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maple Leaf Foods operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.

Loyalty marketing

– Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Maple Leaf Foods has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Maple Leaf Foods to build a more holistic ecosystem for Maple Leaf Foods products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maple Leaf Foods to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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Threats Maple Leaf Foods External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Maple Leaf Foods are -

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 Maple Leaf Foods.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Maple Leaf Foods has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Maple Leaf Foods with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Increasing wage structure of Maple Leaf Foods

– 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 Maple Leaf Foods.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Maple Leaf Foods is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods prominent markets.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Maple Leaf Foods 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

– Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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 Maple Leaf Foods business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maple Leaf Foods 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maple Leaf Foods can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maple Leaf Foods 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maple Leaf Foods Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods 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 Maple Leaf Foods needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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