SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bojun Agriculture (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bojun Agriculture is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bojun Agriculture
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bojun Agriculture can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bojun Agriculture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bojun Agriculture
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bojun Agriculture
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bojun Agriculture
Strengths of Bojun Agriculture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bojun Agriculture are -
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bojun Agriculture digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bojun Agriculture 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bojun Agriculture in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Bojun Agriculture has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bojun Agriculture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bojun Agriculture comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Bojun Agriculture has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Bojun Agriculture have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Bojun Agriculture 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
– Bojun Agriculture has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bojun Agriculture 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
– Bojun Agriculture 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.
High brand equity
– Bojun Agriculture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Bojun Agriculture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Bojun Agriculture 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.
Organizational Resilience of Bojun Agriculture
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bojun Agriculture does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Bojun Agriculture has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bojun Agriculture to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bojun Agriculture to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Bojun Agriculture is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Australia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Australia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Bojun Agriculture in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Bojun Agriculture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bojun Agriculture are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, Bojun Agriculture 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 Food Processing industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bojun Agriculture is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Bojun Agriculture, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bojun Agriculture, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bojun Agriculture has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Bojun Agriculture strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bojun Agriculture 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bojun Agriculture is just above the Food Processing 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bojun Agriculture has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Bojun Agriculture should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bojun Agriculture has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bojun Agriculture lucrative customers.
High dependence on Bojun Agriculture ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bojun Agriculture still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bojun Agriculture has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Bojun Agriculture 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bojun Agriculture has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Bojun Agriculture 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.
Bojun Agriculture Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bojun Agriculture are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bojun Agriculture 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bojun Agriculture can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bojun Agriculture operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Bojun Agriculture 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Bojun Agriculture can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bojun Agriculture 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 Food Processing industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Bojun Agriculture to increase its market reach. Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Bojun Agriculture 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Bojun Agriculture can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture 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, Bojun Agriculture 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.
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. Bojun Agriculture can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Bojun Agriculture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bojun Agriculture are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bojun Agriculture is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Bojun Agriculture with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
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 Bojun Agriculture.
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 Bojun Agriculture
– 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 Bojun Agriculture.
Regulatory challenges
– Bojun Agriculture 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bojun Agriculture 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
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 Bojun Agriculture in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Bojun Agriculture can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bojun Agriculture 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 Food Processing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bojun Agriculture has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bojun Agriculture needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
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. Bojun Agriculture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bojun Agriculture Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture 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 Bojun Agriculture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.