Golden Agri-Resources (GARPY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Golden Agri-Resources (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Golden Agri-Resources is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Golden Agri-Resources
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Golden Agri-Resources can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Golden Agri-Resources, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Golden Agri-Resources
2. Improving business portfolio management of Golden Agri-Resources
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Golden Agri-Resources
Strengths of Golden Agri-Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Golden Agri-Resources are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– Golden Agri-Resources has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Golden Agri-Resources to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Golden Agri-Resources to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Golden Agri-Resources is one of the leading players in the 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Golden Agri-Resources has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Golden Agri-Resources have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Golden Agri-Resources emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Golden Agri-Resources in the sector have low bargaining power. Golden Agri-Resources has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Golden Agri-Resources to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Golden Agri-Resources has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Golden Agri-Resources staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Golden Agri-Resources
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Golden Agri-Resources does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Golden Agri-Resources comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
High brand equity
– Golden Agri-Resources has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Golden Agri-Resources to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Golden Agri-Resources digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Golden Agri-Resources 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Golden Agri-Resources 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.
Analytics focus
– Golden Agri-Resources 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 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.
Weaknesses of Golden Agri-Resources | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Golden Agri-Resources are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Golden Agri-Resources is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Golden Agri-Resources has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Golden Agri-Resources should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Golden Agri-Resources needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Golden Agri-Resources, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Lack of clear differentiation of Golden Agri-Resources products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Golden Agri-Resources needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Golden Agri-Resources has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Golden Agri-Resources needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Golden Agri-Resources can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Golden Agri-Resources is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Golden Agri-Resources ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Golden Agri-Resources still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Golden Agri-Resources has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Golden Agri-Resources has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Golden Agri-Resources strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Golden Agri-Resources 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 industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Golden Agri-Resources 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.
Golden Agri-Resources Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Golden Agri-Resources are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Golden Agri-Resources can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Golden Agri-Resources 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Golden Agri-Resources 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 industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Golden Agri-Resources to increase its market reach. Golden Agri-Resources 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Golden Agri-Resources has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help Golden Agri-Resources to build a more holistic ecosystem for Golden Agri-Resources products in the 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 industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Golden Agri-Resources in the industry. Now Golden Agri-Resources can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Golden Agri-Resources can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Buying journey improvements
– Golden Agri-Resources can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Golden Agri-Resources can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Golden Agri-Resources operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Golden Agri-Resources 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. Golden Agri-Resources 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. Golden Agri-Resources can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Golden Agri-Resources are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Golden Agri-Resources 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 industry.
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. Golden Agri-Resources 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.
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 industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Golden Agri-Resources can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Golden Agri-Resources.
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 Golden Agri-Resources business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Golden Agri-Resources 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 industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Golden Agri-Resources in industry. The 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Golden Agri-Resources 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.
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. Golden Agri-Resources needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources prominent markets.
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.
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 Golden Agri-Resources in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Golden Agri-Resources Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources 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 Golden Agri-Resources needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.