Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc (300189) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Crops
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc
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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc
Strengths of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High brand equity
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Crops
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is one of the leading players in the Crops industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Crops industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Learning organization
- Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Training and development
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc are -
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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc lucrative customers.
High dependence on Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Crops industry, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Crops industry, but Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to focus more on services in the Crops industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc in the Crops industry. Now Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to increase its market reach. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc are -
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
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. Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc
– 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc.
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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc in the Crops sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc 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 Grand Agriseeds Tech Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.