Green Innovations (GNIN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Containers & Packaging
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Green Innovations (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Green Innovations is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Green Innovations
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Green Innovations can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Green Innovations, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Green Innovations
2. Improving business portfolio management of Green Innovations
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Green Innovations
Strengths of Green Innovations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Green Innovations are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Green Innovations in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Green Innovations has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Green Innovations to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Green Innovations in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Green Innovations has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Containers & Packaging industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Green Innovations have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Green Innovations comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Learning organization
- Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Green Innovations emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Green Innovations has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Green Innovations to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Containers & Packaging industry
– Green Innovations is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Green Innovations is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Green Innovations has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Green Innovations 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.
Ability to lead change in Containers & Packaging
– Green Innovations is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Containers & Packaging industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Green Innovations in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Green Innovations is one of the most innovative firm in Containers & Packaging sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Containers & Packaging industry
– Green Innovations has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Green Innovations to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Green Innovations to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Green Innovations | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Green Innovations are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Green Innovations has high operating costs in the Containers & Packaging industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Green Innovations lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Containers & Packaging industry, Green Innovations 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Green Innovations is just above the Containers & Packaging industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High 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 Green Innovations supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Green Innovations is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Green Innovations vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Green Innovations needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Green Innovations 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Green Innovations, in the dynamic environment of Containers & Packaging industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Green Innovations has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Green Innovations has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry over the last five years. Green Innovations 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Green Innovations strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Green Innovations has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Green Innovations should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Green Innovations Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Green Innovations are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Green Innovations is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Green Innovations can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Green Innovations in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Green Innovations 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Green Innovations can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Green Innovations 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Green Innovations can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Containers & Packaging 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Green Innovations 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Containers & Packaging industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Green Innovations can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Containers & Packaging industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Green Innovations 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. Green Innovations 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Green Innovations can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Green Innovations operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Containers & Packaging sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Green Innovations can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
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 Green Innovations 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.
Threats Green Innovations External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Green Innovations are -
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. Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry are lowering. It can presents Green Innovations with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Containers & Packaging sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry regulations.
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 Green Innovations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Green Innovations in Containers & Packaging industry. The Containers & Packaging 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
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 Green Innovations business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Green Innovations can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Green Innovations 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Green Innovations 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. Green Innovations can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Green Innovations is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Green Innovations 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Green Innovations Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations 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 Green Innovations needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.