SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great-Sun Foods (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great-Sun Foods is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, 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 Great-Sun Foods can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great-Sun Foods, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great-Sun Foods
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great-Sun Foods
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great-Sun Foods
Strengths of Great-Sun Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great-Sun Foods are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Great-Sun Foods has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Crops industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Great-Sun Foods have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Great-Sun Foods has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Great-Sun Foods 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Great-Sun Foods in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Great-Sun Foods has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Great-Sun Foods to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Great-Sun Foods 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 Crops industry. The technology infrastructure of China 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Great-Sun Foods is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great-Sun Foods comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Great-Sun Foods has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Great-Sun Foods staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Great-Sun Foods 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.
Organizational Resilience of Great-Sun Foods
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Great-Sun Foods does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Great-Sun Foods is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Great-Sun Foods 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Great-Sun Foods is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Great-Sun Foods has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great-Sun Foods to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great-Sun Foods to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Great-Sun Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great-Sun Foods are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Great-Sun Foods products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Great-Sun Foods needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Great-Sun Foods strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Great-Sun Foods 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Great-Sun Foods is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Great-Sun Foods has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Great-Sun Foods still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Crops industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Great-Sun Foods has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Great-Sun Foods has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Great-Sun Foods should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Great-Sun Foods needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Great-Sun Foods is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Great-Sun Foods to provide better information regarding Crops products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Great-Sun Foods needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Great-Sun Foods can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Great-Sun Foods is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Great-Sun Foods, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Great-Sun Foods, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Great-Sun Foods has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Great-Sun Foods Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great-Sun Foods are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Great-Sun Foods is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Great-Sun Foods can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Great-Sun Foods can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great-Sun Foods has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Great-Sun Foods to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great-Sun Foods products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Great-Sun Foods 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Crops industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Great-Sun Foods in the Crops industry. Now Great-Sun Foods can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Great-Sun Foods can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Great-Sun Foods 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. Great-Sun Foods 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great-Sun Foods in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Great-Sun Foods can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Crops 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Great-Sun Foods to increase its market reach. Great-Sun Foods 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great-Sun Foods are -
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. Great-Sun Foods needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Great-Sun Foods may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Crops 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 Great-Sun Foods.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Crops industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great-Sun Foods can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Great-Sun Foods 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 Crops industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great-Sun Foods is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Great-Sun Foods in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Great-Sun Foods 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. Great-Sun Foods can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Great-Sun Foods 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Great-Sun Foods Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods 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 Great-Sun Foods needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.