Ourpets Company (OPCO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ourpets Company (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ourpets Company is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ourpets Company

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ourpets Company can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ourpets Company, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ourpets Company 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Ourpets Company can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ourpets Company
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ourpets Company
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 Ourpets Company

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

The strengths of Ourpets Company are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Ourpets Company 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Ourpets Company 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Ourpets Company has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ourpets Company staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Ourpets Company has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ourpets Company 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.

Innovation driven organization

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

High brand equity

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

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

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

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Ourpets Company is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ourpets Company 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 Ourpets Company 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.

Superior customer experience

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

Learning organization

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

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

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

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

The weaknesses of Ourpets Company are -

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Ourpets Company 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Ourpets Company has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ourpets Company should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Lack of clear differentiation of Ourpets Company products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ourpets Company needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Ourpets Company needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ourpets Company can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ourpets Company is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Ourpets Company 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ourpets Company 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. Ourpets Company 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Ourpets Company 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.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ourpets Company 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.

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

The opportunities of Ourpets Company are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Ourpets Company 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ourpets Company 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Ourpets Company has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ourpets Company to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ourpets Company 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

– Ourpets Company can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ourpets Company in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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 Ourpets Company in the Food Processing industry. Now Ourpets Company can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ourpets Company is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ourpets Company 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Ourpets Company 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ourpets Company 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.

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. Ourpets Company can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

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

The threats of Ourpets Company are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ourpets Company 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, Ourpets Company 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 Ourpets Company prominent markets.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Regulatory challenges

– Ourpets Company 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 Food Processing industry regulations.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Ourpets Company 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Ourpets Company 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.

Increasing wage structure of Ourpets Company

– 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 Ourpets Company.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Ourpets Company 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. Ourpets Company can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ourpets Company in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Ourpets Company is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Easy access to finance

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ourpets Company Template, Example

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

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