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 – increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, 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, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ten Peaks Coffee 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. Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ten Peaks Coffee has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Food Processing industry using digital technology.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Ten Peaks Coffee needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Manufacturing automation
– Ten Peaks Coffee can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ten Peaks Coffee 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 Ten Peaks Coffee to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ten Peaks Coffee has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ten Peaks Coffee 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ten Peaks Coffee 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 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.
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.
