SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Labixiaoxin Snacks (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Labixiaoxin Snacks is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Labixiaoxin Snacks
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Labixiaoxin Snacks can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Labixiaoxin Snacks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Labixiaoxin Snacks
2. Improving business portfolio management of Labixiaoxin Snacks
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Labixiaoxin Snacks
Strengths of Labixiaoxin Snacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Labixiaoxin Snacks are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Learning organization
- Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Labixiaoxin Snacks emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Labixiaoxin Snacks is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Labixiaoxin Snacks in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Labixiaoxin Snacks has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Organizational Resilience of Labixiaoxin Snacks
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Labixiaoxin Snacks does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Labixiaoxin Snacks digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Analytics focus
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Labixiaoxin Snacks has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Labixiaoxin Snacks to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Labixiaoxin Snacks to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Labixiaoxin Snacks has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Labixiaoxin Snacks staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Labixiaoxin Snacks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Labixiaoxin Snacks are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Labixiaoxin Snacks has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Labixiaoxin Snacks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Labixiaoxin Snacks to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Labixiaoxin Snacks ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Labixiaoxin Snacks supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Labixiaoxin Snacks is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Labixiaoxin Snacks vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Labixiaoxin Snacks, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Labixiaoxin Snacks has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Labixiaoxin Snacks products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Labixiaoxin Snacks needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Labixiaoxin Snacks, 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Labixiaoxin Snacks needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Labixiaoxin Snacks 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. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Labixiaoxin Snacks Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Labixiaoxin Snacks are -
Loyalty marketing
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Labixiaoxin Snacks can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Labixiaoxin Snacks in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Labixiaoxin Snacks 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
– Labixiaoxin Snacks has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Labixiaoxin Snacks to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks to increase its market reach. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Labixiaoxin Snacks is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Labixiaoxin Snacks can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Labixiaoxin Snacks has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Labixiaoxin Snacks to build a more holistic ecosystem for Labixiaoxin Snacks products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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. Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Threats Labixiaoxin Snacks External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Labixiaoxin Snacks are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Environmental challenges
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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. Labixiaoxin Snacks can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Labixiaoxin Snacks has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Labixiaoxin Snacks is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Labixiaoxin Snacks.
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 Labixiaoxin Snacks business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Labixiaoxin Snacks 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.
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.
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 Labixiaoxin Snacks in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Labixiaoxin Snacks Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks 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 Labixiaoxin Snacks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
