Granite City Food OTC (GCFB) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Granite City Food OTC (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Granite City Food OTC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Granite City Food OTC

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Granite City Food OTC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Granite City Food OTC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Granite City Food OTC 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Granite City Food OTC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Granite City Food OTC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Granite City Food OTC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Granite City Food OTC

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Strengths of Granite City Food OTC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Granite City Food OTC are -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry

– Granite City Food OTC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Granite City Food OTC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Granite City Food OTC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Analytics focus

– Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants 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

- Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Granite City Food OTC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Granite City Food OTC 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.

High brand equity

– Granite City Food OTC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Granite City Food OTC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Granite City Food OTC is one of the leading players in the Restaurants 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.

Digital Transformation in Restaurants industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Granite City Food OTC digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Granite City Food OTC 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.

Ability to lead change in Restaurants

– Granite City Food OTC is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Restaurants industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Granite City Food OTC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Granite City Food OTC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Granite City Food OTC 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Granite City Food OTC comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Restaurants 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Restaurants industry

– Granite City Food OTC is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Granite City Food OTC 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.

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Weaknesses of Granite City Food OTC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Granite City Food OTC are -

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Granite City Food OTC needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Granite City Food OTC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Granite City Food OTC has high operating costs in the Restaurants industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Granite City Food OTC lucrative customers.

Need for greater diversity

– Granite City Food OTC 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.

Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Granite City Food OTC 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Granite City Food OTC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Restaurants industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Granite City Food OTC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Granite City Food OTC is planning to shift buying processes online.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Granite City Food OTC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Granite City Food OTC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Granite City Food OTC to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Granite City Food OTC is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Restaurants industry in last five years.

High dependence on Granite City Food OTC ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Granite City Food OTC still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Restaurants industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Granite City Food OTC has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Granite City Food OTC 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.

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Granite City Food OTC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Granite City Food OTC are -

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Restaurants industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Granite City Food OTC 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. Granite City Food OTC 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Granite City Food OTC 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.

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 Granite City Food OTC 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Restaurants industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Granite City Food OTC in the Restaurants industry. Now Granite City Food OTC can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Granite City Food OTC can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Granite City Food OTC operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Granite City Food OTC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Granite City Food OTC to build a more holistic ecosystem for Granite City Food OTC products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Granite City Food OTC 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants industry.

Loyalty marketing

– Granite City Food OTC 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Granite City Food OTC has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Restaurants sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Granite City Food OTC to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Granite City Food OTC to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Buying journey improvements

– Granite City Food OTC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Granite City Food OTC to increase its market reach. Granite City Food OTC 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.

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Threats Granite City Food OTC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Granite City Food OTC are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Granite City Food OTC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Granite City Food OTC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants 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 Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants industry and other sectors.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Granite City Food OTC in Restaurants industry. The Restaurants 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 Granite City Food OTC.

Environmental challenges

– Granite City Food OTC 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. Granite City Food OTC can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Granite City Food OTC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Restaurants sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Granite City Food OTC 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 Restaurants industry regulations.

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 Granite City Food OTC in the Restaurants sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Granite City Food OTC is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. Granite City Food OTC 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.

Increasing wage structure of Granite City Food OTC

– 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 Granite City Food OTC.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Granite City Food OTC Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC 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 Granite City Food OTC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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