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 – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, 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 -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Rogers Sugar Inc. is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Rogers Sugar Inc. is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
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.
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.
High brand equity
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Rogers Sugar Inc. to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Rogers Sugar Inc. has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Rogers Sugar Inc. comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
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.
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 -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Rogers Sugar Inc. has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Rogers Sugar Inc. should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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.
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.
Employees’ less understanding of Rogers Sugar Inc. strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Rogers Sugar Inc. is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Rogers Sugar Inc. to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Rogers Sugar Inc. can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Rogers Sugar Inc. 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 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.
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.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc. in the Food Processing industry. Now Rogers Sugar Inc. can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Rogers Sugar Inc. can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
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.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Rogers Sugar Inc. has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Rogers Sugar Inc. to build a more holistic ecosystem for Rogers Sugar Inc. products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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 -
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.
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..
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Rogers Sugar Inc. needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Food Processing industry regulations.
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.
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.
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.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc. business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Rogers Sugar Inc. 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.
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 Rogers Sugar Inc..
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.
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.