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Ingredion (INGR) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ingredion (United States)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ingredion is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ingredion


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ingredion can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ingredion, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ingredion 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 Ingredion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ingredion
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ingredion
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ingredion




Strengths of Ingredion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Ingredion are -

Highly skilled collaborators

– Ingredion has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ingredion have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Ingredion is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Ingredion comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Ingredion in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Ingredion has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ingredion to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Ingredion 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Ingredion in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Learning organization

- Ingredion 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 Ingredion is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ingredion emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Organizational Resilience of Ingredion

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ingredion does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Innovation driven organization

– Ingredion is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Ingredion is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.

Training and development

– Ingredion 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

– Ingredion has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ingredion to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ingredion to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.






Weaknesses of Ingredion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Ingredion are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ingredion has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Ingredion 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 Ingredion, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ingredion has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Need for greater diversity

– Ingredion 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Ingredion needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

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 Ingredion supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ingredion is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ingredion vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Ingredion 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Ingredion is just above the Food Processing 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Ingredion has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ingredion is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ingredion to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ingredion is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Food Processing industry.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Ingredion is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.




Ingredion Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Ingredion are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Ingredion has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Ingredion to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ingredion products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ingredion can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ingredion 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 Ingredion to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ingredion can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ingredion can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Ingredion to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Manufacturing automation

– Ingredion can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.

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. Ingredion can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ingredion in the Food Processing industry. Now Ingredion can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Ingredion 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ingredion can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ingredion is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ingredion can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– Ingredion can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Ingredion can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Food Processing industry.




Threats Ingredion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Ingredion 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. Ingredion 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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ingredion may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ingredion 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 Ingredion prominent markets.

Environmental challenges

– Ingredion 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. Ingredion can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing 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 Ingredion business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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 Ingredion in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Ingredion 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

– Ingredion has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ingredion needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.

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 Ingredion.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Ingredion demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Food Processing industry and other sectors.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Ingredion with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Ingredion can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Food Processing industry.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ingredion Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ingredion 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 Ingredion 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 Ingredion 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 Ingredion 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 Ingredion needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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