SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mav Beauty Brands (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mav Beauty Brands is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mav Beauty Brands
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mav Beauty Brands can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mav Beauty Brands, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mav Beauty Brands
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mav Beauty Brands
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Personal & Household Prods. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mav Beauty Brands
Strengths of Mav Beauty Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mav Beauty Brands are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Mav Beauty Brands is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Ability to lead change in Personal & Household Prods.
– Mav Beauty Brands is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mav Beauty Brands in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Personal & Household Prods. industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mav Beauty Brands digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mav Beauty Brands has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mav Beauty Brands in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Mav Beauty Brands has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mav Beauty Brands to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Mav Beauty Brands 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 Personal & Household Prods. 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.
High brand equity
– Mav Beauty Brands has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mav Beauty Brands to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mav Beauty Brands has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mav Beauty Brands staying ahead in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mav Beauty Brands in Personal & Household Prods. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal & Household Prods. industry
– Mav Beauty Brands is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Mav Beauty Brands
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mav Beauty Brands does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Mav Beauty Brands | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mav Beauty Brands are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Mav Beauty Brands, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mav Beauty Brands is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mav Beauty Brands to provide better information regarding Personal & Household Prods. products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Mav Beauty Brands needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mav Beauty Brands 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.
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 Mav Beauty Brands supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Mav Beauty Brands is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mav Beauty Brands vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mav Beauty Brands needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal & Household Prods. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mav Beauty Brands can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mav Beauty Brands is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Mav Beauty Brands strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mav Beauty Brands is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in last five years.
High dependence on Mav Beauty Brands ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mav Beauty Brands still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal & Household Prods. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mav Beauty Brands has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Mav Beauty Brands Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mav Beauty Brands are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal & Household Prods. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mav Beauty Brands 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. Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal & Household Prods. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mav Beauty Brands can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Mav Beauty Brands has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can help Mav Beauty Brands to build a more holistic ecosystem for Mav Beauty Brands products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mav Beauty Brands is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mav Beauty Brands can utilize new technology in the field of Personal & Household Prods. industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Mav Beauty Brands can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mav Beauty Brands has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal & Household Prods. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mav Beauty Brands to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mav Beauty Brands to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mav Beauty Brands in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Mav Beauty Brands can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal & Household Prods. 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 Mav Beauty Brands to increase its market reach. Mav Beauty Brands 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Threats Mav Beauty Brands External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mav Beauty Brands are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal & Household Prods. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Mav Beauty Brands 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. Mav Beauty Brands needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Mav Beauty Brands business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mav Beauty Brands is facing in Personal & Household Prods. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mav Beauty Brands 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Mav Beauty Brands 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. Mav Beauty Brands can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mav Beauty Brands in Personal & Household Prods. industry. The Personal & Household Prods. 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 Mav Beauty Brands.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal & Household Prods. industry are lowering. It can presents Mav Beauty Brands with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Mav Beauty Brands in the Personal & Household Prods. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Mav Beauty Brands 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mav Beauty Brands Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands 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 Mav Beauty Brands needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.