SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Acadian Timber Corp (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Acadian Timber Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Acadian Timber Corp
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Acadian Timber Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Acadian Timber Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Acadian Timber Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Acadian Timber Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Forestry & Wood Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Acadian Timber Corp
Strengths of Acadian Timber Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Acadian Timber Corp are -
Innovation driven organization
– Acadian Timber Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Forestry & Wood Products sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Acadian Timber Corp in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Acadian Timber Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Acadian Timber Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Acadian Timber Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Forestry & Wood Products industry. This has provided Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Acadian Timber Corp in Forestry & Wood Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Acadian Timber Corp has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Acadian Timber Corp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Forestry & Wood Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Acadian Timber Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Acadian Timber Corp 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 Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Acadian Timber Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Acadian Timber Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Acadian Timber Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Forestry & Wood Products
– Acadian Timber Corp is one of the leading players in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Forestry & Wood Products industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Acadian Timber Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Acadian Timber Corp is one of the leading players in the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Forestry & Wood Products industry
– Acadian Timber Corp is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Acadian Timber Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Acadian Timber Corp are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Forestry & Wood Products industry, Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Acadian Timber Corp 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Acadian Timber Corp is just above the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Acadian Timber Corp strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Acadian Timber Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Acadian Timber Corp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Forestry & Wood Products 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, Acadian Timber Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Acadian Timber Corp to provide better information regarding Forestry & Wood Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Acadian Timber Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Forestry & Wood Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Acadian Timber Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Acadian Timber Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Acadian Timber Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Acadian Timber Corp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Forestry & Wood Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Acadian Timber Corp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Acadian Timber Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Acadian Timber Corp are -
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 Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Acadian Timber Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Forestry & Wood Products 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Acadian Timber Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Forestry & Wood Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Acadian Timber Corp can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Acadian Timber Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Forestry & Wood Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Acadian Timber Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Acadian Timber Corp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Acadian Timber Corp 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Acadian Timber Corp 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.
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. Acadian Timber Corp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Acadian Timber Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Acadian Timber Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Forestry & Wood Products sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Acadian Timber Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Forestry & Wood Products industry. This can help Acadian Timber Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Acadian Timber Corp products in the Forestry & Wood Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Forestry & Wood Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Acadian Timber Corp in the Forestry & Wood Products industry. Now Acadian Timber Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Acadian Timber Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Acadian Timber Corp are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Acadian Timber Corp
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Acadian Timber Corp.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Forestry & Wood Products industry are lowering. It can presents Acadian Timber Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Forestry & Wood Products sector.
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 Acadian Timber Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Acadian Timber Corp 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Acadian Timber Corp in Forestry & Wood Products industry. The Forestry & Wood Products 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.
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. Acadian Timber Corp 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Acadian Timber Corp is facing in Forestry & Wood Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Acadian Timber Corp 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 Forestry & Wood Products industry.
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. Acadian Timber Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Forestry & Wood Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Forestry & Wood Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Acadian Timber Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Acadian Timber Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp 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 Acadian Timber Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
