Ourpets Company (OPCO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / 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 – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
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.
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
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 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.
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.
Training and development
– Ourpets Company has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-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.
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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ourpets Company is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Ourpets Company 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.
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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ourpets Company digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ourpets Company 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 Ourpets Company
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ourpets Company does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ourpets Company has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ourpets Company have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ourpets Company is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Weaknesses of Ourpets Company | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ourpets Company are -
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.
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 Ourpets Company supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ourpets Company is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ourpets Company vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ourpets Company is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Ourpets Company needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ourpets Company to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Ourpets Company ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ourpets Company still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ourpets Company has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ourpets Company 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 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.
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.
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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ourpets Company 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 Food Processing industry.
Ourpets Company Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ourpets Company are -
Buying journey improvements
– Ourpets Company can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ourpets Company to increase its market reach. Ourpets Company 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.
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.
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.
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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ourpets Company can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ourpets Company operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
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.
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ourpets Company can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Ourpets Company can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ourpets Company has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Ourpets Company to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ourpets Company products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ourpets Company 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 Ourpets Company to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
Threats Ourpets Company External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ourpets Company are -
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. Ourpets Company 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Ourpets Company in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ourpets Company has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ourpets Company needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Ourpets Company business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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. Ourpets Company needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.