Olmix (MLOLM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Olmix (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Olmix is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Olmix

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Olmix can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Olmix, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Olmix 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 Olmix can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Olmix
2. Improving business portfolio management of Olmix
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 Olmix

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

The strengths of Olmix are -

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

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

Innovation driven organization

– Olmix is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Training and development

– Olmix 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.

Learning organization

- Olmix 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 Olmix is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Olmix emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Olmix in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Olmix 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.

Organizational Resilience of Olmix

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Olmix does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High brand equity

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Olmix is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Olmix 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 Food Processing industry

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Olmix 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

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

The weaknesses of Olmix are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Olmix is just above the Food Processing 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Olmix is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Olmix, 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of France, Olmix needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Products dominated business model

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

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Olmix is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Food Processing industry.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

Workers concerns about automation

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

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Olmix, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Olmix has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Olmix has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Food Processing industry using digital technology.

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

The opportunities of Olmix are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Olmix 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

– Olmix 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Olmix 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Olmix is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Olmix can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Olmix 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Olmix 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 Olmix to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Olmix to increase its market reach. Olmix 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Buying journey improvements

– Olmix 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Olmix can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Olmix can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Olmix has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Olmix to build a more holistic ecosystem for Olmix products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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

The threats of Olmix are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

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

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. Olmix 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.

Increasing wage structure of Olmix

– 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 Olmix.

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 Olmix business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Environmental challenges

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

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Olmix 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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Olmix 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

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

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Olmix can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Food Processing industry.

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. Olmix needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Olmix Template, Example

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

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