Eco Building Products (ECOB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Forestry & Wood Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eco Building Products (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eco Building Products is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eco Building Products
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eco Building Products can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eco Building Products, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eco Building Products
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eco Building Products
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Forestry & Wood Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eco Building Products
Strengths of Eco Building Products | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eco Building Products are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eco Building Products in Forestry & Wood Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Eco Building Products has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eco Building Products to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eco Building Products has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Forestry & Wood Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eco Building Products have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Forestry & Wood Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eco Building Products digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eco Building Products 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Eco Building Products is one of the most innovative firm in Forestry & Wood Products sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Eco Building Products is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eco Building Products in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Eco Building Products has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eco Building Products to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eco Building Products 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Eco Building Products has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eco Building Products to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eco Building Products to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eco Building Products has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eco Building Products 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eco Building Products has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eco Building Products staying ahead in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Forestry & Wood Products
– Eco Building Products is one of the leading players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eco Building Products in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Eco Building Products | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eco Building Products are -
Employees’ less understanding of Eco Building Products strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eco Building Products 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eco Building Products, in the dynamic environment of Forestry & Wood Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eco Building Products has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eco Building Products 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 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 Eco Building Products supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eco Building Products is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eco Building Products vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Forestry & Wood Products industry, Eco Building Products 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Eco Building Products is just above the Forestry & Wood Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Eco Building Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eco Building Products products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eco Building Products needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Eco Building Products 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eco Building Products 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Eco Building Products needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Eco Building Products Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eco Building Products are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eco Building Products to increase its market reach. Eco Building Products 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.
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. Eco Building Products can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eco Building Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eco Building Products has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Forestry & Wood Products industry. This can help Eco Building Products to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eco Building Products products in the Forestry & Wood Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eco Building Products can develop new processes and procedures in Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Eco Building Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eco Building Products in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. Now Eco Building Products can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eco Building Products 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eco Building Products can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eco Building Products has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Forestry & Wood Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eco Building Products to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eco Building Products to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eco Building Products 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eco Building Products 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.
Threats Eco Building Products External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products.
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 Eco Building Products in the Forestry & Wood Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Eco Building Products business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eco Building Products is facing in Forestry & Wood Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eco Building Products 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eco Building Products in Forestry & Wood Products industry. The Forestry & Wood Products 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.
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. Eco Building Products 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eco Building Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Forestry & Wood Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eco Building Products can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Eco Building Products 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eco Building Products Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products 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 Eco Building Products needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.