Murray River Organics (MRG) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Murray River Organics (Australia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Murray River Organics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Murray River Organics

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Murray River Organics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Murray River Organics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Murray River Organics 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 Murray River Organics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Murray River Organics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Murray River Organics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Murray River Organics

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Strengths of Murray River Organics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Murray River Organics are -

Successful track record of launching new products

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

– Murray River Organics 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Murray River Organics is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Murray River Organics in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Murray River Organics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Murray River Organics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Murray River Organics comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Crops 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.

Analytics focus

– Murray River Organics 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 Crops 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Murray River Organics has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Murray River Organics 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.

Learning organization

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Murray River Organics is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Murray River Organics 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

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

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Weaknesses of Murray River Organics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Murray River Organics are -

High dependence on Murray River Organics ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Murray River Organics still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Crops industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Murray River Organics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Murray River Organics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Murray River Organics 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 Murray River Organics has some of the most successful models in the Crops industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Murray River Organics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Murray River Organics 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 Crops industry.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Murray River Organics 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 Crops industry using digital technology.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Murray River Organics, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Murray River Organics 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, Murray River Organics has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Murray River Organics lucrative customers.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Murray River Organics needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Murray River Organics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Murray River Organics is planning to shift buying processes online.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Murray River Organics has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

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

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Murray River Organics, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops 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.

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Murray River Organics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Murray River Organics are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Murray River Organics 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 Crops industry.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Crops industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Murray River Organics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Murray River Organics 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.

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 Murray River Organics 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Murray River Organics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Murray River Organics 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 Murray River Organics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Murray River Organics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Murray River Organics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Murray River Organics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Murray River Organics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Murray River Organics to increase its market reach. Murray River Organics 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Murray River Organics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Murray River Organics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Murray River Organics can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.

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. Murray River Organics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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Threats Murray River Organics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Murray River Organics are -

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 Murray River Organics.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Murray River Organics may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Crops sector.

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. Murray River Organics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Shortening product life cycle

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

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Murray River Organics 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 Crops industry.

Increasing wage structure of Murray River Organics

– 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 Murray River Organics.

Regulatory challenges

– Murray River Organics 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 Crops industry regulations.

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. Murray River Organics 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Murray River Organics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Murray River Organics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.

Environmental challenges

– Murray River Organics 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. Murray River Organics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Crops industry.

Easy access to finance

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

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 Murray River Organics 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 Murray River Organics in Crops industry. The Crops 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Murray River Organics Template, Example

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

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