Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Leroy Seafood ADR is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Leroy Seafood ADR
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Leroy Seafood ADR can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Leroy Seafood ADR, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Leroy Seafood ADR
2. Improving business portfolio management of Leroy Seafood ADR
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Leroy Seafood ADR
Strengths of Leroy Seafood ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Leroy Seafood ADR are -
Ability to lead change in
– Leroy Seafood ADR is one of the leading players in the industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Leroy Seafood ADR in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Leroy Seafood ADR is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Leroy Seafood ADR has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Organizational Resilience of Leroy Seafood ADR
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Leroy Seafood ADR does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Leroy Seafood ADR digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Leroy Seafood ADR 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
– Leroy Seafood ADR is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Analytics focus
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Training and development
– Leroy Seafood ADR has one of the best training and development program in 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
– Leroy Seafood ADR has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Leroy Seafood ADR have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Leroy Seafood ADR emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
High brand equity
– Leroy Seafood ADR has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Leroy Seafood ADR to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Leroy Seafood ADR | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Leroy Seafood ADR are -
Skills based hiring in industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Leroy Seafood ADR has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Leroy Seafood ADR is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Leroy Seafood ADR to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Leroy Seafood ADR supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Leroy Seafood ADR is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Leroy Seafood ADR vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Leroy Seafood ADR products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Leroy Seafood ADR needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Leroy Seafood ADR is just above the 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Leroy Seafood ADR, in the dynamic environment of industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Leroy Seafood ADR has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Leroy Seafood ADR has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Leroy Seafood ADR lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Leroy Seafood ADR 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 industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Leroy Seafood ADR strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Leroy Seafood ADR has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Leroy Seafood ADR should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Leroy Seafood ADR 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 industry.
Leroy Seafood ADR Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Leroy Seafood ADR are -
Loyalty marketing
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Leroy Seafood ADR has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Leroy Seafood ADR to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Leroy Seafood ADR to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Leroy Seafood ADR can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Leroy Seafood ADR in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the 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, Leroy Seafood ADR can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Leroy Seafood ADR operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
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 Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Leroy Seafood ADR can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Leroy Seafood ADR 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Leroy Seafood ADR can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Leroy Seafood ADR can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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. Leroy Seafood ADR can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Leroy Seafood ADR External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Leroy Seafood ADR are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Leroy Seafood ADR may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
Environmental challenges
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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. Leroy Seafood ADR can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the industry.
Increasing wage structure of Leroy Seafood ADR
– 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 Leroy Seafood ADR.
Regulatory challenges
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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 industry regulations.
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. Leroy Seafood ADR needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Leroy Seafood ADR in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Leroy Seafood ADR can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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 industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Leroy Seafood ADR in industry. The 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.
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 Leroy Seafood ADR.
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. Leroy Seafood ADR will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Leroy Seafood ADR 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 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Leroy Seafood ADR Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR 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 Leroy Seafood ADR needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
