SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Glob Bioenergi (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Glob Bioenergi is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Glob Bioenergi can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Glob Bioenergi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Glob Bioenergi
2. Improving business portfolio management of Glob Bioenergi
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 Glob Bioenergi
Strengths of Glob Bioenergi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Glob Bioenergi are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Glob Bioenergi 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Glob Bioenergi 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
– Glob Bioenergi is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Glob Bioenergi in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Glob Bioenergi has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Glob Bioenergi to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Glob Bioenergi emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Glob Bioenergi has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Glob Bioenergi 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Glob Bioenergi 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
– Glob Bioenergi has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Glob Bioenergi to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Glob Bioenergi to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Glob Bioenergi 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Training and development
– Glob Bioenergi 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.
Weaknesses of Glob Bioenergi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Glob Bioenergi are -
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Glob Bioenergi 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Glob Bioenergi 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Glob Bioenergi is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Glob Bioenergi, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Glob Bioenergi has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Glob Bioenergi has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Glob Bioenergi lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Glob Bioenergi is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Glob Bioenergi to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Glob Bioenergi is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Glob Bioenergi needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Glob Bioenergi to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Glob Bioenergi 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Glob Bioenergi, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Glob Bioenergi 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Glob Bioenergi 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.
Glob Bioenergi Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Glob Bioenergi are -
Loyalty marketing
– Glob Bioenergi 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.
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. Glob Bioenergi can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Glob Bioenergi in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Glob Bioenergi can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Glob Bioenergi 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Glob Bioenergi can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Glob Bioenergi operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi 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, Glob Bioenergi is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Glob Bioenergi 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Glob Bioenergi 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. Glob Bioenergi 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Glob Bioenergi 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Glob Bioenergi to increase its market reach. Glob Bioenergi 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Glob Bioenergi to build a more holistic ecosystem for Glob Bioenergi products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Glob Bioenergi to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Glob Bioenergi External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Glob Bioenergi are -
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 Glob Bioenergi in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Glob Bioenergi.
Environmental challenges
– Glob Bioenergi 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. Glob Bioenergi can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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. Glob Bioenergi can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Glob Bioenergi 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Glob Bioenergi 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.
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. Glob Bioenergi needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Glob Bioenergi 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Glob Bioenergi with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Glob Bioenergi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Glob Bioenergi 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Glob Bioenergi Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi 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 Glob Bioenergi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
