Bonduelle (BOND) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bonduelle (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bonduelle 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%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bonduelle

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bonduelle can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bonduelle, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bonduelle
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bonduelle
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bonduelle

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Strengths of Bonduelle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Bonduelle are -

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Bonduelle is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in France. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in France but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Bonduelle 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

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

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bonduelle digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bonduelle 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Bonduelle 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Bonduelle is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Bonduelle has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bonduelle to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Bonduelle 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.

Training and development

– Bonduelle 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)

– Bonduelle has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bonduelle 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Analytics focus

– Bonduelle 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 France 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.

High brand equity

– Bonduelle has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bonduelle to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

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Weaknesses of Bonduelle | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Bonduelle are -

High dependence on Bonduelle ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bonduelle 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. Bonduelle 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Bonduelle, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Bonduelle strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bonduelle 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Products dominated business model

– Even though Bonduelle 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. Bonduelle should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bonduelle 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bonduelle is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

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

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Bonduelle 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.

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Bonduelle Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Bonduelle are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bonduelle to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Buying journey improvements

– Bonduelle 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Bonduelle can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bonduelle 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Bonduelle 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle to increase its market reach. Bonduelle 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bonduelle 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Bonduelle 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Bonduelle 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 Food Processing industry.

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 Bonduelle in the Food Processing industry. Now Bonduelle can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Increase in government spending

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

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Threats Bonduelle External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Bonduelle 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.

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 Bonduelle 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, Bonduelle 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Bonduelle 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.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Bonduelle has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bonduelle 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

Increasing wage structure of Bonduelle

– 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 Bonduelle.

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 Bonduelle in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline 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. Bonduelle needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

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

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle prominent markets.

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. Bonduelle 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 Bonduelle Template, Example

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

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