Ten Peaks Coffee (SWP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ten Peaks Coffee (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ten Peaks Coffee is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ten Peaks Coffee can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ten Peaks Coffee, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ten Peaks Coffee
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ten Peaks Coffee
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ten Peaks Coffee
Strengths of Ten Peaks Coffee | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ten Peaks Coffee are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ten Peaks Coffee has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ten Peaks Coffee is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ten Peaks Coffee in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Ten Peaks Coffee has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ten Peaks Coffee to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ten Peaks Coffee digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ten Peaks Coffee is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Canada. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Canada. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Training and development
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Analytics focus
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of Canada 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.
Learning organization
- Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ten Peaks Coffee emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ten Peaks Coffee in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Ten Peaks Coffee has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ten Peaks Coffee to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Ten Peaks Coffee has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ten Peaks Coffee to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ten Peaks Coffee to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Ten Peaks Coffee | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ten Peaks Coffee are -
High dependence on Ten Peaks Coffee ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Ten Peaks Coffee is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Ten Peaks Coffee vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ten Peaks Coffee 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. Ten Peaks Coffee should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ten Peaks Coffee products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ten Peaks Coffee needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ten Peaks Coffee is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Canada, Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ten Peaks Coffee, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ten Peaks Coffee 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ten Peaks Coffee has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ten Peaks Coffee lucrative customers.
Ten Peaks Coffee Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ten Peaks Coffee are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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 Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ten Peaks Coffee can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ten Peaks Coffee operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ten Peaks Coffee has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Ten Peaks Coffee to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ten Peaks Coffee products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ten Peaks Coffee can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Ten Peaks Coffee 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. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ten Peaks Coffee to increase its market reach. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ten Peaks Coffee is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Threats Ten Peaks Coffee External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ten Peaks Coffee are -
Environmental challenges
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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. Ten Peaks Coffee can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
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 Ten Peaks Coffee.
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. Ten Peaks Coffee needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Increasing wage structure of Ten Peaks Coffee
– 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 Ten Peaks Coffee.
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. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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. Ten Peaks Coffee can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Ten Peaks Coffee with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ten Peaks Coffee Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.