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Libbey (LBY) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Libbey (United States)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Libbey is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Libbey


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




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

The strengths of Libbey are -

Digital Transformation in Appliance & Tool industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Libbey digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Libbey 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Libbey is present in almost all the verticals within the Appliance & Tool industry. This has provided Libbey 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.

Organizational Resilience of Libbey

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

High brand equity

– Libbey has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Libbey to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Appliance & Tool industry

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

Learning organization

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

Ability to lead change in Appliance & Tool

– Libbey is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Appliance & Tool industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Libbey in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Libbey comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Libbey has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Libbey has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Training and development

– Libbey has one of the best training and development program in Consumer 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.






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

The weaknesses of Libbey are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Libbey is just above the Appliance & Tool 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

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

Need for greater diversity

– Libbey 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 Libbey needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Appliance & Tool industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Libbey can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Libbey is planning to shift buying processes online.

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Libbey, in the dynamic environment of Appliance & Tool industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Libbey has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Libbey 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 Appliance & Tool industry using digital technology.

Employees’ less understanding of Libbey strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Libbey 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, Libbey 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 Libbey ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Libbey still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Appliance & Tool industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Libbey has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Libbey, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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.




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


The opportunities of Libbey are -

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Libbey 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 Appliance & Tool industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Libbey can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Loyalty marketing

– Libbey 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Libbey can develop new processes and procedures in Appliance & Tool 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Libbey 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 Appliance & Tool industry.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Libbey has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Libbey to build a more holistic ecosystem for Libbey products in the Appliance & Tool 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, Libbey 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.

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Libbey can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Libbey operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Appliance & Tool sector.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Libbey 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 Libbey to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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 Libbey 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Libbey can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Appliance & Tool 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.




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


The threats of Libbey are -

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Libbey.

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. Libbey 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 Libbey in the Appliance & Tool sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Environmental challenges

– Libbey 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. Libbey can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Libbey in Appliance & Tool industry. The Appliance & Tool 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.

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. Libbey needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Appliance & Tool industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Libbey can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Learning curve for new practices

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

Consumer confidence and its impact on Libbey 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 Appliance & Tool industry and other sectors.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Libbey has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Appliance & Tool industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Libbey needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Appliance & Tool 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Libbey 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 Appliance & Tool industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Libbey is facing in Appliance & Tool sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Libbey Template, Example


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



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