SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for JinJian Cereals (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , JinJian Cereals is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that JinJian Cereals can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the JinJian Cereals, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of JinJian Cereals
2. Improving business portfolio management of JinJian Cereals
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 JinJian Cereals
Strengths of JinJian Cereals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of JinJian Cereals are -
Analytics focus
– JinJian Cereals 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.
Innovation driven organization
– JinJian Cereals is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– JinJian Cereals 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
– JinJian Cereals has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. JinJian Cereals 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
– JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals 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 Food Processing industry
– JinJian Cereals is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of JinJian Cereals comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– JinJian Cereals is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided JinJian Cereals 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of JinJian Cereals in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. JinJian Cereals has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps JinJian Cereals to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– JinJian Cereals 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– JinJian Cereals has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – JinJian Cereals staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of JinJian Cereals | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of JinJian Cereals are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As JinJian Cereals 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that JinJian Cereals needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at JinJian Cereals can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as JinJian Cereals is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, JinJian Cereals has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract JinJian Cereals lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, JinJian Cereals has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. JinJian Cereals 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 Food Processing industry, JinJian Cereals 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though JinJian Cereals has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. JinJian Cereals should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, JinJian Cereals is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help JinJian Cereals to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at JinJian Cereals 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of JinJian Cereals products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, JinJian Cereals needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, JinJian Cereals is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Food Processing industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, JinJian Cereals 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
JinJian Cereals Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of JinJian Cereals are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of JinJian Cereals has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help JinJian Cereals to build a more holistic ecosystem for JinJian Cereals products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– JinJian Cereals 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for JinJian Cereals 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, JinJian Cereals 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.
Buying journey improvements
– JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals to increase its market reach. JinJian Cereals 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help JinJian Cereals to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 JinJian Cereals in the Food Processing industry. Now JinJian Cereals can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. JinJian Cereals 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. JinJian Cereals 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
– JinJian Cereals 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects JinJian Cereals can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for JinJian Cereals 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.
Threats JinJian Cereals External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of JinJian Cereals are -
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. JinJian Cereals 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for JinJian Cereals in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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 JinJian Cereals.
Increasing wage structure of JinJian Cereals
– 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 JinJian Cereals.
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
– JinJian Cereals 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. JinJian Cereals can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– JinJian Cereals has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, JinJian Cereals 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.
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 JinJian Cereals in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
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 JinJian Cereals business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, JinJian Cereals may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
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. JinJian Cereals can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– JinJian Cereals 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of JinJian Cereals Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals 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 JinJian Cereals needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.