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 – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fbec Worldwide digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fbec Worldwide 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fbec Worldwide in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fbec Worldwide in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Fbec Worldwide has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fbec Worldwide to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Learning organization
- 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.
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.
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.
Weaknesses of Fbec Worldwide | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fbec Worldwide are -
High dependence on Fbec Worldwide ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fbec Worldwide still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fbec Worldwide has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fbec Worldwide 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Fbec Worldwide 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 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.
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 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fbec Worldwide 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fbec Worldwide 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fbec Worldwide is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Fbec Worldwide needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fbec Worldwide to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Fbec Worldwide needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Fbec Worldwide Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fbec Worldwide are -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fbec Worldwide to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fbec Worldwide is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fbec Worldwide can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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.
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. Fbec Worldwide can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fbec Worldwide can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fbec Worldwide operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fbec Worldwide 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. Fbec Worldwide 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.
Threats Fbec Worldwide External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fbec Worldwide are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fbec Worldwide 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 Fbec Worldwide prominent markets.
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 Fbec Worldwide in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Fbec Worldwide 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.
Environmental challenges
– Fbec Worldwide 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. Fbec Worldwide can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
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.
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.