Sc Nitrocell A (2246) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sc Nitrocell A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sc Nitrocell A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, technology disruption,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sc Nitrocell A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sc Nitrocell A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sc Nitrocell A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sc Nitrocell A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sc Nitrocell A
Strengths of Sc Nitrocell A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sc Nitrocell A are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Sc Nitrocell A is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This has provided Sc Nitrocell A 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sc Nitrocell A 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
– Sc Nitrocell A is one of the most innovative firm in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sc Nitrocell A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Training and development
– Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A 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.
High brand equity
– Sc Nitrocell A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sc Nitrocell A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sc Nitrocell A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sc Nitrocell A staying ahead in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sc Nitrocell A in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Sc Nitrocell A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sc Nitrocell A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– Sc Nitrocell A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sc Nitrocell A in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sc Nitrocell A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Weaknesses of Sc Nitrocell A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sc Nitrocell A are -
High dependence on Sc Nitrocell A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sc Nitrocell A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sc Nitrocell A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sc Nitrocell A 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sc Nitrocell A has high operating costs in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sc Nitrocell A lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Sc Nitrocell A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sc Nitrocell A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sc Nitrocell A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry over the last five years. Sc Nitrocell A 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Sc Nitrocell A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sc Nitrocell A has some of the most successful models in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sc Nitrocell A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sc Nitrocell A, in the dynamic environment of Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A is just above the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Sc Nitrocell A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sc Nitrocell A are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sc Nitrocell A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sc Nitrocell A can utilize new technology in the field of Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sc Nitrocell A in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. Now Sc Nitrocell A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sc Nitrocell A 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sc Nitrocell A to increase its market reach. Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sc Nitrocell A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sc Nitrocell A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sc Nitrocell A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sc Nitrocell A 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. Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Threats Sc Nitrocell A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sc Nitrocell A are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sc Nitrocell A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sc Nitrocell A 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sc Nitrocell A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sc Nitrocell A is facing in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
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 Sc Nitrocell A in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sc Nitrocell A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sc Nitrocell A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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 wage structure of Sc Nitrocell A
– 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 Sc Nitrocell A.
Environmental challenges
– Sc Nitrocell A 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. Sc Nitrocell A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
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 Sc Nitrocell A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sc Nitrocell A in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. The Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
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. Sc Nitrocell A 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 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. Sc Nitrocell A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sc Nitrocell A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A 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 Sc Nitrocell A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
