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 – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
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.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Explosifs Prod Chimiques comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
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 -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Explosifs Prod Chimiques is just above the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Explosifs Prod Chimiques has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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, Explosifs Prod Chimiques is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Explosifs Prod Chimiques to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Explosifs Prod Chimiques is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Explosifs Prod Chimiques to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing 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 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.
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.
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 -
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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Explosifs Prod Chimiques in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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 Explosifs Prod Chimiques to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Explosifs Prod Chimiques has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Explosifs Prod Chimiques to build a more holistic ecosystem for Explosifs Prod Chimiques products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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.
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 -
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.
Environmental challenges
– Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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. Explosifs Prod Chimiques can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Explosifs Prod Chimiques with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing 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. Explosifs Prod Chimiques needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 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.
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.
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.
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. Explosifs Prod Chimiques 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.
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.
