Intexa (ITXA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Textiles - Non Apparel
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Intexa (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Intexa is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Intexa can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Intexa, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Intexa 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 Intexa can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Intexa
2. Improving business portfolio management of Intexa
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a Textiles - Non Apparel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Intexa
Strengths of Intexa | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Intexa are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Intexa 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.
High brand equity
– Intexa has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Intexa to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Intexa has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Intexa staying ahead in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Intexa in Textiles - Non Apparel industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Intexa comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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
– Intexa is present in almost all the verticals within the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This has provided Intexa 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.
Organizational Resilience of Intexa
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Intexa does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Intexa has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Intexa 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Intexa has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Textiles - Non Apparel industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Intexa have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Intexa digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Intexa 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Intexa is one of the leading players in the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Learning organization
- Intexa 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 Intexa is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Intexa emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Intexa | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Intexa are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of France, Intexa needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Intexa products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Intexa needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Intexa is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Intexa to provide better information regarding Textiles - Non Apparel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Intexa has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry over the last five years. Intexa 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Intexa needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Intexa can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Intexa is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Intexa 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 Intexa, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
High dependence on Intexa ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Intexa still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Textiles - Non Apparel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Intexa has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Intexa is just above the Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Textiles - Non Apparel industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in France, Intexa 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Intexa has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Intexa Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Intexa are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Intexa to increase its market reach. Intexa 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.
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 Intexa 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Intexa can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Intexa operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Textiles - Non Apparel industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Intexa can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Intexa can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Intexa is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Intexa can utilize new technology in the field of Textiles - Non Apparel 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. Intexa can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Intexa 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 Intexa 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Intexa has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This can help Intexa to build a more holistic ecosystem for Intexa products in the Textiles - Non Apparel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Intexa 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Intexa 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Intexa 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.
Threats Intexa External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Intexa are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Textiles - Non Apparel industry are lowering. It can presents Intexa with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Textiles - Non Apparel sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Intexa 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Intexa 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 Intexa prominent markets.
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. Intexa needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Textiles - Non Apparel industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Intexa 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Intexa 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry.
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 Intexa business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Intexa in Textiles - Non Apparel industry. The Textiles - Non Apparel 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Intexa is facing in Textiles - Non Apparel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Intexa 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 Textiles - Non Apparel industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Intexa 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 wage structure of Intexa
– 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 Intexa.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Intexa Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Intexa 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 Intexa 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 Intexa 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 Intexa 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 Intexa needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.