OriginClear (OCLN) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fish/Livestock
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for OriginClear (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , OriginClear is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that OriginClear can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the OriginClear, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which OriginClear 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 OriginClear can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of OriginClear
2. Improving business portfolio management of OriginClear
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of OriginClear
Strengths of OriginClear | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of OriginClear are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry
– OriginClear has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled OriginClear to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry. The sustainable margins have also helped OriginClear to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- OriginClear 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 OriginClear is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at OriginClear emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of OriginClear 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.
Analytics focus
– OriginClear 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 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– OriginClear is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided OriginClear 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– OriginClear is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Digital Transformation in Fish/Livestock industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For OriginClear digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. OriginClear 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 OriginClear
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing OriginClear does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– OriginClear is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of OriginClear in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the OriginClear 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that OriginClear 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.
Weaknesses of OriginClear | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of OriginClear are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As OriginClear 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of OriginClear is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but OriginClear needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help OriginClear to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
OriginClear has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fish/Livestock industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Fish/Livestock industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at OriginClear 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though OriginClear 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. OriginClear should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, OriginClear 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of OriginClear is just above the Fish/Livestock 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 dependence on OriginClear ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of OriginClear still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though OriginClear has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, OriginClear needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– OriginClear 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, OriginClear has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. OriginClear 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.
OriginClear Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of OriginClear are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects OriginClear can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. OriginClear can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– OriginClear 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, OriginClear can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that OriginClear operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for OriginClear 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 OriginClear to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, OriginClear is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. OriginClear 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for OriginClear 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, OriginClear 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 OriginClear 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
– OriginClear has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled OriginClear to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help OriginClear to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help OriginClear to increase its market reach. OriginClear will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
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. OriginClear can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, OriginClear 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for OriginClear in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now OriginClear can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats OriginClear External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of OriginClear are -
Increasing wage structure of OriginClear
– 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 OriginClear.
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
– OriginClear 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.
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 OriginClear in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. OriginClear needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fish/Livestock industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for OriginClear in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– OriginClear has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, OriginClear 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.
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. OriginClear 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.
Environmental challenges
– OriginClear 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. OriginClear can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors 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 OriginClear business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents OriginClear 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, OriginClear 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 OriginClear prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on OriginClear 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of OriginClear Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at OriginClear 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 OriginClear 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 OriginClear 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 OriginClear 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 OriginClear needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
