Rogers Sugar Inc. (RSI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Rogers Sugar Inc. (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Rogers Sugar Inc. is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Rogers Sugar Inc.
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Rogers Sugar Inc. can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Rogers Sugar Inc., and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Rogers Sugar Inc.
2. Improving business portfolio management of Rogers Sugar Inc.
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Rogers Sugar Inc.
Strengths of Rogers Sugar Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Rogers Sugar Inc. are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Rogers Sugar Inc. to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Rogers Sugar Inc. to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Learning organization
- Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Rogers Sugar Inc. emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Rogers Sugar Inc.
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Rogers Sugar Inc. does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Rogers Sugar Inc. in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Rogers Sugar Inc. has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Rogers Sugar Inc. to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Rogers Sugar Inc. have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Rogers Sugar Inc. is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Rogers Sugar Inc. is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Rogers Sugar Inc. in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Canada 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Rogers Sugar Inc. are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Rogers Sugar Inc., in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Rogers Sugar Inc. has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Rogers Sugar Inc., it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Rogers Sugar Inc. has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Rogers Sugar Inc. even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Rogers Sugar Inc. is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Rogers Sugar Inc. to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Rogers Sugar Inc. ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Rogers Sugar Inc. is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Food Processing industry.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc. supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Rogers Sugar Inc. is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Rogers Sugar Inc. vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Rogers Sugar Inc. products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Rogers Sugar Inc. Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Rogers Sugar Inc. are -
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. Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Rogers Sugar Inc. can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Rogers Sugar Inc. is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Rogers Sugar Inc. to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Rogers Sugar Inc. to increase its market reach. Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Threats Rogers Sugar Inc. External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Rogers Sugar Inc. are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Rogers Sugar Inc. is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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. Rogers Sugar Inc. can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing 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. Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Rogers Sugar Inc. 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
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc. in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Rogers Sugar Inc.
– 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 Rogers Sugar Inc..
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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. Rogers Sugar Inc. can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Rogers Sugar Inc. Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
