SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fbec Worldwide (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fbec Worldwide is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fbec Worldwide can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fbec Worldwide, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fbec Worldwide
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fbec Worldwide
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fbec Worldwide
Strengths of Fbec Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fbec Worldwide are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fbec Worldwide 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.
Training and development
– Fbec Worldwide 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fbec Worldwide is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Fbec Worldwide 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fbec Worldwide has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fbec Worldwide staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Fbec Worldwide 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.
Learning organization
- Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fbec Worldwide emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Fbec Worldwide
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fbec Worldwide does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Fbec Worldwide is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Fbec Worldwide in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Fbec Worldwide is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fbec Worldwide is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fbec Worldwide 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Fbec Worldwide has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fbec Worldwide to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fbec Worldwide to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Fbec Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fbec Worldwide are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Fbec Worldwide products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fbec Worldwide needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fbec Worldwide is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Fbec Worldwide to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fbec Worldwide, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fbec Worldwide has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Fbec Worldwide supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Fbec Worldwide is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fbec Worldwide vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Fbec Worldwide needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Fbec Worldwide can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fbec Worldwide is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Fbec Worldwide 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fbec Worldwide has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Fbec Worldwide should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fbec Worldwide has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fbec Worldwide lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fbec Worldwide is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fbec Worldwide 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.
Fbec Worldwide Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fbec Worldwide are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fbec Worldwide can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Fbec Worldwide can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fbec Worldwide 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fbec Worldwide has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Fbec Worldwide to build a more holistic ecosystem for Fbec Worldwide products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fbec Worldwide 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fbec Worldwide to increase its market reach. Fbec Worldwide 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.
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 Fbec Worldwide 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fbec Worldwide can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fbec Worldwide in the Food Processing industry. Now Fbec Worldwide can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Fbec Worldwide can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fbec Worldwide 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.
Threats Fbec Worldwide External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fbec Worldwide are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fbec Worldwide 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fbec Worldwide has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fbec Worldwide 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.
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.
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 Fbec Worldwide.
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.
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. Fbec Worldwide can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide 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 Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Fbec Worldwide with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fbec Worldwide 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Food Processing industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fbec Worldwide 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fbec Worldwide Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
