SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated
2. Improving business portfolio management of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated
Strengths of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Fish/Livestock industry
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Fish/Livestock industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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
- Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Fish/Livestock industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fish/Livestock industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
High dependence on Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fish/Livestock 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated, in the dynamic environment of Fish/Livestock industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated are -
Loyalty marketing
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to increase its market reach. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fish/Livestock industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fish/Livestock industry. This can help Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to build a more holistic ecosystem for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated products in the Fish/Livestock industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Threats Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fish/Livestock industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fish/Livestock industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is facing in Fish/Livestock sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fish/Livestock sector.
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. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.