Planet Green (PLAG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Planet Green (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Planet Green is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Planet Green

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Planet Green can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Planet Green, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Planet Green 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 Planet Green can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Planet Green
2. Improving business portfolio management of Planet Green
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 Planet Green

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Strengths of Planet Green | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Planet Green are -

Organizational Resilience of Planet Green

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Planet Green does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Planet Green 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Planet Green 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

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

High brand equity

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

Learning organization

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

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Planet Green digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Planet Green 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

– Planet Green 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.

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Planet Green 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 Planet Green in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Planet Green 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 Planet Green have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

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Weaknesses of Planet Green | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Planet Green are -

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Lack of clear differentiation of Planet Green products

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

Employees’ less understanding of Planet Green strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Planet Green 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.

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 Planet Green supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Planet Green is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Planet Green vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Planet Green 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Planet Green 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

– Planet Green 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Planet Green 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 Planet Green lucrative customers.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Planet Green 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Planet Green 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.

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Planet Green Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Planet Green are -

Reforming the budgeting process

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Planet Green 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Planet Green 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 Planet Green to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Planet Green 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Planet Green 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Planet Green 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 Planet Green has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Planet Green to build a more holistic ecosystem for Planet Green products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Planet Green to increase its market reach. Planet Green 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Planet Green 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 Planet Green to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Planet Green to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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. Planet Green 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. Planet Green 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

– Planet Green 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Planet Green 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.

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Threats Planet Green External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Planet Green are -

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 Planet Green.

Increasing wage structure of Planet Green

– 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 Planet Green.

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

– Planet Green 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.

Environmental challenges

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

Regulatory challenges

– Planet Green 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Planet Green 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.

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.

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. Planet Green 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.

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 Planet Green business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Planet Green has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Planet Green 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.

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. Planet Green needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Planet Green 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Planet Green Template, Example

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

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