Week 4 Assig

Strengths

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Threats

Product/ Service Offering

Our products and services are differentiated and unique.

Price competition due to similar product offerings.

Economies of scale through offsetting production costs by going green.

Volatility of global markets leading to uncertainty, especially in inventory keeping.

Brand/ Marketing

Strong brand image and positioning.

The economic downturn means that less people have disposable income (Hitt et al., 2016). This means less return on investment after marketing.

More and more people are on social media, creating an opportunity to market products online.

Increased competition due to easy of entry into market.

Staff/ HR

Dependable and skillful workforce.

Complications in new production processes create the need for further training.

Expertise and experience for the workforce means that the business can expand or diversify its offerings.

Competitive firms try their best to lure staff members as a way to increase the competitive advantage.

Finance

A strong and stable bottom-line ensuring efficiency in operations.

Decreased revenue leading to less investable revenue and capital for new projects.

Diversification of the business and expansion into new markets could lead to increased revenue.

Global trade and economic tensions could threaten the stability of the company’s books (Leonidou et al., 2015). This is especially the case in terms of currency valuation.

Operations/ Management

Efficient production

Sourcing of raw materials from abroad.

Environmentally friendly processes and materials

Increased competition leading to higher supplier bargaining power.

Market

Strong brand image and positioning.

Ease of market entry leading to increased competition.

Expansion into the global market.

Economic Downturn.

Can any of your strengths help with improving your weaknesses or combating your threats? If so, please describe how below.

 Our efficient production approaches and processes mean that we can curb competition through reducing our costs. Cost reductions would lead to lower prices. In turn, lower prices would help us acquire competitive advantage. It would also help leverage suppliers. Moreover, the increasingly cheaper it is to produce our products, the more we can produce higher volumes (Gürel, 2017). This would require more raw materials meaning that we can leverage higher volume orders for discounts from our suppliers.

Based on the information above, what are your immediate goals/next steps?

 Diversification of our product offerings. At this point in our business, we feel that we can venture into similar products. This is mainly due to the experience and expertise gained. New products offerings would diversify our books and ensure that we rely less on each particular product (Bull et al., 2016). In the volatility in global markets today, this would ensure that the economic downturn has minimal effects on our business and bottom-line.

Streamlining of processes. The more efficient and effective our production processes are, the lower the costs associated with production. Lowering of costs works as well as increases in revenue as it allows for more investment into new products, marketing, hiring talent, among others. It would also allow us to reduce our prices and this would attract more consumers to our products (Hitt et al., 2016). This move will be guided by quality considerations, to ensure that our products retain their quality and reliability.

Based on the information above, what are your long-term goals/next steps?

 Expansion into the global market. In today’s business landscape, going global is such a huge opportunity that it is essential for any business to consider. However, it entails building relationships, understanding cultures, and consumer behavior (Phadermrod et al., 2019). Expansion into the global market should be done in due time and for our business, we feel that we can do it in the next five years. At this point in time, we are focused on undertaking market research and forming partnerships at strategic locations all over the world.

Becoming more environmentally friendly. It is important to us as it is to our customers that we transform our production processes into environmentally friendly ones. This entails going green and employing more sustainable approaches (Hitt et al., 2016). Part of this is sourcing raw materials locally, as a way to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and environmental impact.