Sabeton (SABL) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sabeton (France)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sabeton 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%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sabeton

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

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

The strengths of Sabeton are -

Ability to recruit top talent

– Sabeton is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.

High brand equity

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

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Sabeton is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Innovation driven organization

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

Learning organization

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

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Sabeton 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.

Diverse revenue streams

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

Highly skilled collaborators

– Sabeton has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sabeton have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Analytics focus

– Sabeton 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Training and development

– Sabeton 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.

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

The weaknesses of Sabeton are -

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Sabeton has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sabeton lucrative customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Sabeton 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Sabeton 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Sabeton 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Sabeton strategy

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

No frontier risks strategy

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

Need for greater diversity

– Sabeton 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.

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 Sabeton supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sabeton is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sabeton vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

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

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

The opportunities of Sabeton 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 Sabeton 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sabeton 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 Sabeton can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Creating value in data economy

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sabeton is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sabeton 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.

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. Sabeton can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

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. Sabeton 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. Sabeton 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Sabeton 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Sabeton 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

– Sabeton 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sabeton 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.

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

The threats of Sabeton are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Sabeton is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Environmental challenges

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

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Sabeton 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 Sabeton

– 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 Sabeton.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Sabeton 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.

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 Sabeton.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

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

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 Sabeton in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sabeton in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.

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

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sabeton can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Sabeton 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sabeton Template, Example

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

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