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 – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, 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 -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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 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.
Analytics focus
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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 Fish/Livestock 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
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.
Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock
– Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to provide better information regarding Fish/Livestock products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated 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.
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 -
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can utilize new technology in the field of Fish/Livestock industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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.
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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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.
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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.
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.
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.
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. Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 -
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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated.
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.
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Clearwater Seafoods Incorporated business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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.
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.
