Fortress Global (FGE) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Paper & Paper Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fortress Global (Canada)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fortress Global is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fortress Global can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fortress Global, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fortress Global
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fortress Global
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Canada
4. Making a Paper & Paper Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fortress Global
Strengths of Fortress Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fortress Global are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fortress Global in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Fortress Global has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fortress Global to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Fortress Global is one of the most innovative firm in Paper & Paper Products sector.
Analytics focus
– Fortress Global 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 Paper & Paper Products 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.
Training and development
– Fortress Global has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fortress Global 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fortress Global has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fortress Global 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fortress Global is present in almost all the verticals within the Paper & Paper Products industry. This has provided Fortress Global 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.
Organizational Resilience of Fortress Global
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fortress Global does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Fortress Global has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fortress Global to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fortress Global in Paper & Paper Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fortress Global is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fortress Global 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.
Weaknesses of Fortress Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fortress Global are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Fortress Global needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Paper & Paper Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Fortress Global can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Fortress Global is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Fortress Global supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Fortress Global is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fortress Global vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Fortress Global strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Fortress Global 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fortress Global, in the dynamic environment of Paper & Paper Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fortress Global has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fortress Global is just above the Paper & Paper Products 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fortress Global 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 Paper & Paper Products industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fortress Global has high operating costs in the Paper & Paper Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fortress Global lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fortress Global has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Paper & Paper Products industry over the last five years. Fortress Global 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Fortress Global 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Canada, Fortress Global needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Fortress Global ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fortress Global still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Paper & Paper Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fortress Global has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Fortress Global Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fortress Global are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Paper & Paper Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fortress Global 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. Fortress Global 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fortress Global has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Paper & Paper Products industry. This can help Fortress Global to build a more holistic ecosystem for Fortress Global products in the Paper & Paper Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fortress Global 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Paper & Paper Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Fortress Global can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fortress Global is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fortress Global can utilize new technology in the field of Paper & Paper Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fortress Global can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fortress Global operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Paper & Paper Products sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Fortress Global can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fortress Global 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fortress Global can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fortress Global to increase its market reach. Fortress Global 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Paper & Paper Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fortress Global in the Paper & Paper Products industry. Now Fortress Global can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fortress Global in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Paper & Paper Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fortress Global 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.
Threats Fortress Global External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fortress Global are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fortress Global has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Paper & Paper Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fortress Global needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fortress Global in Paper & Paper Products industry. The Paper & Paper Products 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.
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 Fortress Global in the Paper & Paper Products 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. Fortress Global 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fortress Global 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.
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 Fortress Global.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fortress Global may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Paper & Paper Products sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fortress Global is facing in Paper & Paper Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fortress Global 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 Paper & Paper Products industry and other sectors.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Fortress Global
– 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 Fortress Global.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fortress Global Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global 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 Fortress Global needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.