Ten Peaks Coffee (SWP) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / 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 – increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ten Peaks Coffee

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.

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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

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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 -

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.

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.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

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

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Ten Peaks Coffee is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Canada. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Canada but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ten Peaks Coffee in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Ten Peaks Coffee is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Ten Peaks Coffee 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.

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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 -

Ability to respond to the competition

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

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.

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.

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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ten Peaks Coffee is planning to shift buying processes online.

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.

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.

Employees’ less understanding of Ten Peaks Coffee strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ten Peaks Coffee 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Ten Peaks Coffee is just above the Food Processing 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.

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.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ten Peaks Coffee 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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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 -

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ten Peaks Coffee 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. Ten Peaks Coffee can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.

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. Ten Peaks Coffee can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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.

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.

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.

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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 -

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 Ten Peaks Coffee in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

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.

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 Ten Peaks Coffee business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

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

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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.

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