SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Explosifs Prod Chimiques (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Explosifs Prod Chimiques is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Explosifs Prod Chimiques can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Explosifs Prod Chimiques, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
2. Improving business portfolio management of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
Strengths of Explosifs Prod Chimiques | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Explosifs Prod Chimiques are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Explosifs Prod Chimiques in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Explosifs Prod Chimiques has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Explosifs Prod Chimiques to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
High brand equity
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Explosifs Prod Chimiques to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Explosifs Prod Chimiques have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Explosifs Prod Chimiques to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Explosifs Prod Chimiques to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Learning organization
- Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Explosifs Prod Chimiques emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Explosifs Prod Chimiques staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Explosifs Prod Chimiques digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Organizational Resilience of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Explosifs Prod Chimiques does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Explosifs Prod Chimiques | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Explosifs Prod Chimiques are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Explosifs Prod Chimiques is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Explosifs Prod Chimiques has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Explosifs Prod Chimiques can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Explosifs Prod Chimiques is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Explosifs Prod Chimiques is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Explosifs Prod Chimiques vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Explosifs Prod Chimiques products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Explosifs Prod Chimiques, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Explosifs Prod Chimiques Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Explosifs Prod Chimiques are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Explosifs Prod Chimiques to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Explosifs Prod Chimiques to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Explosifs Prod Chimiques can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Explosifs Prod Chimiques can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Explosifs Prod Chimiques can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Explosifs Prod Chimiques in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Explosifs Prod Chimiques can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Explosifs Prod Chimiques can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Explosifs Prod Chimiques operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Explosifs Prod Chimiques is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Explosifs Prod Chimiques can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Explosifs Prod Chimiques External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Explosifs Prod Chimiques are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Explosifs Prod Chimiques can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Explosifs Prod Chimiques in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Explosifs Prod Chimiques may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Explosifs Prod Chimiques
– 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
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. Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Explosifs Prod Chimiques Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.