SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fountaine Pajo (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fountaine Pajo is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fountaine Pajo can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fountaine Pajo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fountaine Pajo
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fountaine Pajo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fountaine Pajo
Strengths of Fountaine Pajo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fountaine Pajo are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Fountaine Pajo 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
– Fountaine Pajo is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Products industry. This has provided Fountaine Pajo 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.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fountaine Pajo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fountaine Pajo 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fountaine Pajo has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fountaine Pajo 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry
– Fountaine Pajo has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fountaine Pajo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fountaine Pajo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fountaine Pajo in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Fountaine Pajo has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fountaine Pajo to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fountaine Pajo emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Fountaine Pajo
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fountaine Pajo does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Fountaine Pajo is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Products sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Fountaine Pajo comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Products 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
– Fountaine Pajo has one of the best training and development program in Consumer 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fountaine Pajo is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry in France. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in France. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Fountaine Pajo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fountaine Pajo are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fountaine Pajo, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fountaine Pajo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fountaine Pajo has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Fountaine Pajo needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fountaine Pajo still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fountaine Pajo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Fountaine Pajo 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fountaine Pajo 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 Recreational Products industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Fountaine Pajo has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Fountaine Pajo should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Recreational Products industry, Fountaine Pajo 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fountaine Pajo is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Products industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fountaine Pajo has high operating costs in the Recreational Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fountaine Pajo lucrative customers.
Fountaine Pajo Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fountaine Pajo are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Fountaine Pajo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fountaine Pajo is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fountaine Pajo can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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 Fountaine Pajo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fountaine Pajo in the Recreational Products industry. Now Fountaine Pajo can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fountaine Pajo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Products industry. This can help Fountaine Pajo to build a more holistic ecosystem for Fountaine Pajo products in the Recreational Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fountaine Pajo to increase its market reach. Fountaine Pajo 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fountaine Pajo has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fountaine Pajo to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fountaine Pajo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Fountaine Pajo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Products 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fountaine Pajo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fountaine Pajo 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fountaine Pajo 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fountaine Pajo can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Products 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.
Threats Fountaine Pajo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fountaine Pajo are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Fountaine Pajo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Fountaine Pajo needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Products 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.
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 Fountaine Pajo business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Fountaine Pajo 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fountaine Pajo 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 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.
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 Fountaine Pajo.
Regulatory challenges
– Fountaine Pajo 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 Recreational Products industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fountaine Pajo may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Products sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Products industry are lowering. It can presents Fountaine Pajo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Products sector.
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. Fountaine Pajo needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Fountaine Pajo
– 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 Fountaine Pajo.
Environmental challenges
– Fountaine Pajo 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. Fountaine Pajo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Products industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fountaine Pajo Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo 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 Fountaine Pajo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.