SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Crailar Technologies (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Crailar Technologies is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Crailar Technologies
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Crailar Technologies can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Crailar Technologies, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Crailar Technologies
2. Improving business portfolio management of Crailar Technologies
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Crailar Technologies
Strengths of Crailar Technologies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Crailar Technologies are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Crailar Technologies in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Crailar Technologies has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Crailar Technologies to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Crailar Technologies digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Crailar Technologies 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Crailar Technologies is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Crailar Technologies 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Crailar Technologies comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Training and development
– Crailar Technologies has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Crailar Technologies 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.
Ability to lead change in Chemical Manufacturing
– Crailar Technologies is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Crailar Technologies in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Crailar Technologies is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Crailar Technologies 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Crailar Technologies has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Crailar Technologies have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Crailar Technologies emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Crailar Technologies has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Crailar Technologies to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Crailar Technologies to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Crailar Technologies | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Crailar Technologies are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Crailar Technologies is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Crailar Technologies has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Crailar Technologies 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.
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 Crailar Technologies supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Crailar Technologies is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Crailar Technologies vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Crailar Technologies 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Crailar Technologies strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Crailar Technologies 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.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Crailar Technologies 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.
High dependence on Crailar Technologies ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Crailar Technologies still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemical Manufacturing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Crailar Technologies has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Crailar Technologies has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Crailar Technologies lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Crailar Technologies, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Crailar Technologies has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Crailar Technologies 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Crailar Technologies is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Crailar Technologies to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Crailar Technologies Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Crailar Technologies are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Crailar Technologies has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Crailar Technologies to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Crailar Technologies to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Crailar Technologies has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Crailar Technologies to build a more holistic ecosystem for Crailar Technologies products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Crailar Technologies 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. Crailar Technologies 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.
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. Crailar Technologies can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Crailar Technologies 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Crailar Technologies to increase its market reach. Crailar Technologies 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Crailar Technologies is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Crailar Technologies can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Crailar Technologies 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Crailar Technologies can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Crailar Technologies 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Crailar Technologies can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Crailar Technologies operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Crailar Technologies 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.
Threats Crailar Technologies External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies.
Environmental challenges
– Crailar Technologies 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. Crailar Technologies can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Crailar Technologies is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Crailar Technologies 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
– Crailar Technologies 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Crailar Technologies may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Crailar Technologies in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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 Crailar Technologies business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Crailar Technologies
– 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 Crailar Technologies.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Crailar Technologies 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
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. Crailar Technologies needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Crailar Technologies Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies 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 Crailar Technologies needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
