High Performance Beverages (TBEV) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for High Performance Beverages (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , High Performance Beverages is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of High Performance Beverages
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that High Performance Beverages can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the High Performance Beverages, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of High Performance Beverages
2. Improving business portfolio management of High Performance Beverages
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of High Performance Beverages
Strengths of High Performance Beverages | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of High Performance Beverages are -
Organizational Resilience of High Performance Beverages
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing High Performance Beverages does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– High Performance Beverages has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. High Performance Beverages 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– High Performance Beverages has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of High Performance Beverages have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– High Performance Beverages 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 industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of High Performance Beverages comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that High Performance Beverages 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.
Innovation driven organization
– High Performance Beverages is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of High Performance Beverages in industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– High Performance Beverages has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – High Performance Beverages staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at High Performance Beverages emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– High Performance Beverages has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled High Performance Beverages to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped High Performance Beverages to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– High Performance Beverages has one of the best training and development program in 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.
Weaknesses of High Performance Beverages | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of High Performance Beverages are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
High Performance Beverages has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of High Performance Beverages strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of High Performance Beverages 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the industry, High Performance Beverages 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.
Need for greater diversity
– High Performance Beverages 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, High Performance Beverages has high operating costs in the industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract High Performance Beverages lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of High Performance Beverages is just above the 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, High Performance Beverages 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that High Performance Beverages needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at High Performance Beverages can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as High Performance Beverages is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, High Performance Beverages has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. High Performance Beverages 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.
High dependence on High Performance Beverages ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of High Performance Beverages still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though High Performance Beverages has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As High Performance Beverages is one of the leading players in the industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High Performance Beverages Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of High Performance Beverages are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for High Performance Beverages in the industry. Now High Performance Beverages can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, High Performance Beverages is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. High Performance Beverages can utilize new technology in the field of industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of High Performance Beverages has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help High Performance Beverages to build a more holistic ecosystem for High Performance Beverages products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– High Performance Beverages 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages 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 industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. High Performance Beverages can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for High Performance Beverages 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. High Performance Beverages 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. High Performance Beverages 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, High Performance Beverages can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that High Performance Beverages operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– High Performance Beverages can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– High Performance Beverages has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled High Performance Beverages to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help High Performance Beverages to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats High Performance Beverages External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of High Performance Beverages are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, High Performance Beverages may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
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 High Performance Beverages.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. High Performance Beverages 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 industry are lowering. It can presents High Performance Beverages with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 High Performance Beverages in the 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. High Performance Beverages 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– High Performance Beverages has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, High Performance Beverages needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the 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 High Performance Beverages in industry. The 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.
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 High Performance Beverages business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– High Performance Beverages 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on High Performance Beverages 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 industry and other sectors.
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. High Performance Beverages needs to understand the core reasons impacting the industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of High Performance Beverages Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages 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 High Performance Beverages needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.