Farm Pride Foods Ltd (FRM) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fish/Livestock
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Farm Pride Foods Ltd (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Farm Pride Foods Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Farm Pride Foods Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Farm Pride Foods Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Farm Pride Foods Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Farm Pride Foods Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Farm Pride Foods Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Farm Pride Foods Ltd
Strengths of Farm Pride Foods Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Farm Pride Foods Ltd are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Farm Pride Foods Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Farm Pride Foods Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Farm Pride Foods Ltd in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Farm Pride Foods Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Farm Pride Foods Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Farm Pride Foods Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Farm Pride Foods Ltd in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Farm Pride Foods Ltd staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Fish/Livestock industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Farm Pride Foods Ltd are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Farm Pride Foods Ltd is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Farm Pride Foods Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Fish/Livestock industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Farm Pride Foods Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Farm Pride Foods Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Farm Pride Foods Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Farm Pride Foods Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Farm Pride Foods Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fish/Livestock industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Farm Pride Foods Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Farm Pride Foods Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Farm Pride Foods Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Farm Pride Foods Ltd to provide better information regarding Fish/Livestock 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Farm Pride Foods Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Farm Pride Foods Ltd to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Farm Pride Foods Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, Farm Pride Foods Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Farm Pride Foods Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Farm Pride Foods Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Farm Pride Foods Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Farm Pride Foods Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Farm Pride Foods Ltd are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Farm Pride Foods Ltd can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Loyalty marketing
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fish/Livestock 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Farm Pride Foods Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fish/Livestock industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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. Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Farm Pride Foods Ltd in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now Farm Pride Foods Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Farm Pride Foods Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Farm Pride Foods Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Farm Pride Foods Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Farm Pride Foods Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Farm Pride Foods Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd prominent markets.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Farm Pride Foods Ltd
– 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
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.
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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Farm Pride Foods Ltd in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Farm Pride Foods Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fish/Livestock industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Farm Pride Foods Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Farm Pride Foods Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fish/Livestock sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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.
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. Farm Pride Foods Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fish/Livestock industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Farm Pride Foods Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd 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 Farm Pride Foods Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.