Nf Foodstuff A (716) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nf Foodstuff A (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nf Foodstuff A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nf Foodstuff A

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nf Foodstuff A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nf Foodstuff A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nf Foodstuff 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Nf Foodstuff A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nf Foodstuff A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nf Foodstuff A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nf Foodstuff A

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Strengths of Nf Foodstuff A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Nf Foodstuff A are -

Learning organization

- Nf Foodstuff A 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 Nf Foodstuff A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nf Foodstuff A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Nf Foodstuff A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Nf Foodstuff A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

– Nf Foodstuff A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nf Foodstuff A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nf Foodstuff A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Nf Foodstuff 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Nf Foodstuff A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Nf Foodstuff A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nf Foodstuff 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.

Organizational Resilience of Nf Foodstuff A

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nf Foodstuff A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Nf Foodstuff 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Nf Foodstuff A in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Analytics focus

– Nf Foodstuff A 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 Food Processing 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Nf Foodstuff A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Nf Foodstuff A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Nf Foodstuff 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.

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Weaknesses of Nf Foodstuff A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Nf Foodstuff A are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Nf Foodstuff A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nf Foodstuff 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Nf Foodstuff A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Nf Foodstuff A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nf Foodstuff A to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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 Nf Foodstuff A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Nf Foodstuff A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nf Foodstuff A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Need for greater diversity

– Nf Foodstuff A 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 China, Nf Foodstuff A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Nf Foodstuff A is just above the Food Processing 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, Nf Foodstuff A 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.

High dependence on Nf Foodstuff A ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Nf Foodstuff A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Nf Foodstuff A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nf Foodstuff A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nf Foodstuff A to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Nf Foodstuff 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.

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Nf Foodstuff A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Nf Foodstuff A are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Nf Foodstuff A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nf Foodstuff A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nf Foodstuff A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nf Foodstuff 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.

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 Nf Foodstuff A 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Nf Foodstuff 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Nf Foodstuff A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nf Foodstuff A can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Nf Foodstuff 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. Nf Foodstuff 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nf Foodstuff A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Buying journey improvements

– Nf Foodstuff A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Nf Foodstuff A to increase its market reach. Nf Foodstuff 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Nf Foodstuff A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Nf Foodstuff A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nf Foodstuff A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nf Foodstuff A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nf Foodstuff A in the Food Processing industry. Now Nf Foodstuff A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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Threats Nf Foodstuff A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Nf Foodstuff A are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Nf Foodstuff A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nf Foodstuff A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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 Nf Foodstuff 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 Nf Foodstuff A.

Environmental challenges

– Nf Foodstuff 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. Nf Foodstuff A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

Regulatory challenges

– Nf Foodstuff A needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Food Processing industry regulations.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Nf Foodstuff A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Nf Foodstuff A 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.

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 Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nf Foodstuff A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Nf Foodstuff A in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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.

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. Nf Foodstuff A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Nf Foodstuff 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.

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. Nf Foodstuff 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nf Foodstuff A Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nf Foodstuff 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 Nf Foodstuff 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 Nf Foodstuff 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 Nf Foodstuff 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 Nf Foodstuff A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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