O Sorbet d’Amour (MLOSA) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for O Sorbet d’Amour (France)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , O Sorbet d’Amour is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that O Sorbet d’Amour can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the O Sorbet d’Amour, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of O Sorbet d’Amour
2. Improving business portfolio management of O Sorbet d’Amour
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in France
4. Making a sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of O Sorbet d’Amour
Strengths of O Sorbet d’Amour | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of O Sorbet d’Amour are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of O Sorbet d’Amour in 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 O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in industry
– O Sorbet d’Amour has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled O Sorbet d’Amour to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the industry. The sustainable margins have also helped O Sorbet d’Amour to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of O Sorbet d’Amour in the sector have low bargaining power. O Sorbet d’Amour has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps O Sorbet d’Amour to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the industry
– O Sorbet d’Amour is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– O Sorbet d’Amour has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of O Sorbet d’Amour comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Organizational Resilience of O Sorbet d’Amour
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing O Sorbet d’Amour does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– O Sorbet d’Amour has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of O Sorbet d’Amour have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– O Sorbet d’Amour is one of the most innovative firm in sector.
High brand equity
– O Sorbet d’Amour has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled O Sorbet d’Amour to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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 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.
Weaknesses of O Sorbet d’Amour | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of O Sorbet d’Amour are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of O Sorbet d’Amour, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, O Sorbet d’Amour is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help O Sorbet d’Amour to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on O Sorbet d’Amour ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of O Sorbet d’Amour still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though O Sorbet d’Amour has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, O Sorbet d’Amour has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
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 O Sorbet d’Amour supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, O Sorbet d’Amour is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left O Sorbet d’Amour vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of O Sorbet d’Amour is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the industry, but O Sorbet d’Amour needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help O Sorbet d’Amour to focus more on services in the industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, O Sorbet d’Amour 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 industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of O Sorbet d’Amour is just above the 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of O Sorbet d’Amour products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, O Sorbet d’Amour needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of O Sorbet d’Amour strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though O Sorbet d’Amour has some of the most successful models in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. O Sorbet d’Amour should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
O Sorbet d’Amour Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of O Sorbet d’Amour are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– O Sorbet d’Amour has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled O Sorbet d’Amour to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help O Sorbet d’Amour to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for O Sorbet d’Amour in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– O Sorbet d’Amour can improve the customer journey of consumers in the 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 industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. O Sorbet d’Amour 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. O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of O Sorbet d’Amour has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in industry. This can help O Sorbet d’Amour to build a more holistic ecosystem for O Sorbet d’Amour products in the industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at O Sorbet d’Amour 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 industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– O Sorbet d’Amour can develop new processes and procedures in 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.
Manufacturing automation
– O Sorbet d’Amour can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in 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.
Loyalty marketing
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help O Sorbet d’Amour to increase its market reach. O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Threats O Sorbet d’Amour External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of O Sorbet d’Amour are -
Increasing wage structure of O Sorbet d’Amour
– 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 O Sorbet d’Amour.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that O Sorbet d’Amour is facing in sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 O Sorbet d’Amour business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 O Sorbet d’Amour in the sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. O Sorbet d’Amour 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 industry are lowering. It can presents O Sorbet d’Amour with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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 industry.
Regulatory challenges
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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 industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on O Sorbet d’Amour 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 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 O Sorbet d’Amour.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, O Sorbet d’Amour may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– O Sorbet d’Amour 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of O Sorbet d’Amour Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour 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 O Sorbet d’Amour needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.