External Forces and Trends Considerations - Essay Example

SWOTT Analysis (Name) (Institution) Grade/Course) (Tutor’s Name) December 13, 2008 External forces and trends considerations: Legal and regulatory factors Strength: Have high understanding of the technicalities of the law in new business establishment. Our purpose as a business in support of the laws on safety of employees and workers. Weakness: we have yet to recruit a lawyer to represent the company in such issues as it viewed as very expensive an additional cost to the company. Opportunity: the factories act requires that all employees must be equipped with protective clothing recommended for their various work stations and types of work depending on the risk factor. Technologic: our equipments and production units are of high quality thus enables our company to produce protective clothing that meets the stipulated standards by the law and the concerned regulatory bodies. Trend: the safety of employees is gaining much favor among employers and as such, workstation that were previously not viewed to involve a lot of risks are being considered to have some degree of risk hence the need to have protective clothing. This presents our company with the opportunity to develop protective ware that is above the conventional protective wear in the market such as gloves and helmets. Economic factors Strength: we have a strong budget and the company has enough resources to cater for upsets in the budget. Weakness: the current global economic station s forcing many manufacturers an companies to close shop thus reducing our market size. Opportunity: increased awareness by employees and employers over the need to ensure that employees and other stakeholders in the manufacturing process are well protected from any possible harm emanating from the production process. For example, there have been increased concerns over the risk of radioactive rays which means that our company will have the opportunity of producing protective clothing to cater for that. Technologic: technologic development in the production process facilitated by better and more advanced machines reduces our cost of production. Trend: the current global economic downturn is hurting businesses world over and our business is not exempt from such economic trends and cycles. Technological factors: Strength: we have the latest and technologically advanced machines than any of our competitors that ensures that our protective clothing are of the highest quality and that our production costs are low and that there is general efficiency in production. Weakness: our employees are not comprehensively equipped and knowledgeable in handling the new complicated machines and thus they have to continuously receive additional training from the machine manufactures which makes additional costs to us. Opportunity: our production unit has a higher capacity at very low production costs compared to our competitors hence increases our competitive advantage. Technologic: Trend: manufacturing companies are phasing out old technologies in production to increase efficiency and capacity. Innovation: Strength: new production machines and management strategies will impact on our business competitiveness and growth. The faster we are in adopting new innovations in these fields and the competent we are in implementing them increases our business performance. Weakness: new innovations are costly to implement and requires long periods of time to evaluate and implement. Opportunity: our high technology facilitates innovation in new products and improvement on existing products that increases the quality of our protective clothing and ensures increased safety to our customers. By innovating new products first, our company can seek to have patent rights over them and maybe consider selling production rights in future. Technologic: technologic empowerment in our production process ensures there are better facilities to power innovation and development of new products. Trend: players in the industry are driving towards developing clothing wear that does not interfere with the competence, efficiency and comfort of the wearer while at the same time increasing the level of safety. This is what our company is also aiming at with our emphasis being on providing protective clothing for employees who were previously viewed as not exposed to risk. Environmental: Strength: we have a sound environmental policy that lays emphasis on using organic materials in our production where applicable and reducing our wastage. Weakness: using organic materials on our production increase our cost of production Opportunity: our company markets its protective clothing as more safe as they are from natural products hence environmentally conscious than our competitors. Technologic: high technology in our production reduces wastage and release of harmful products into the environment such as smoke. Trend: there is more global emphasis on “green” products and production processes which we are pursuing Competitive analysis: Strength: our main competitor, Ramage Industries, has established a strong brand name and dominates the market and sets prices. Long presence in the industry means that it has a loyal market following. Has experience in the industry and maintained customers for long making its products predictable to the customer. Weakness: Ramage Industries has a bad environmental record. The company uses old obsolete machines that cause delays in the production process due to frequent technical breakdowns. The company is labor intensive hence has higher production costs. Opportunity: Customer loyalty can be turned into complete market domination that locks out new entrants into the market. As a price setter, it can lock out other players and competitors using strategic pricing. Technologic: Inefficient in production due to old machines. Trend: Disadvantaged by its poor environmental record in the era of “going green”. Internal forces and trends considerations: Strategy Strength: our corporate strategy is guided by our mission statement which reads as “Safety, concern, and care for consumers. Protection of our environment and personal and corporate integrity are the company’s highest values, and we will not compromise them.” Our strategy has thus taken note of the requirements of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) as recommended by ISO in order to ensure the safety of our workers before we can ensure the safety of our customers through our safety products. Therefore we have established ourselves as a consumer of our own products which is very important in gaining consumer trust. As a show of our concern, our company will be providing training on safety to factory workers for our business customers. Weakness: Adopting such as a strategy increases the risk of the marketability of our products incase of accidents or other undesired safety concerns in our production. This means that, misuse or a random accident in our company can be interpreted as the failure of our safety policy which is very ironical or as the inefficiency of poor quality of our safety clothing that we market and also used by our workers. Opportunity: increased trust by our customers means increased business for our company. Again the success of our new strategy using our products to set an example will transform as a basic requirement for other players to comply with. Technologic: production using the highest technology ensures that our strategic message to our customers is complete by maintaining the highest quality possible. Trend: increased regulation in safety matters as governed by the World Health Organization and ISO are forming the basis of perception by consumers. Therefore, being the first company in our industry to embrace the requirements strategically places us above our competitors in the market by being viewed positively by the market. Resources Strength: we have adequately served budget with all capital outlay in terms of machines and spare parts in place. Weaknesses: Our production unit outlay cannot meet unprecedented increase in production past our initial market requirement estimates. Opportunity: our company is located in an expansive area with extensive area for future expansion of our factory. Technologic: Our production machines are of the latest technology and have a lost lasting useful life that will reduce our costs of maintenance and replacements. Trend: Investments in resources are being made on long term considerations Leadership Strength: Our team of top management executives comprising of six individuals has an experience totaling 93 years as managers thus giving us depth in management option and expertise in strategic decision making. Two members of our board of directors are established forces as former business leadership consultants. Weakness: our large management team leads to delays in making decisions as they have to meet, and consult and make unanimous decisions. Due to teams long experience in management, some of the strategies employed in the company might be obsolete and time barred. Lack of a central point of authority with overriding powers may mean that there is lack of harmony and togetherness in making and implementing business decisions. Opportunity: The 93 years of experience presented to the company our management team provides us with the needed expertise to operate successfully. Technologic: Adoption of new management techniques helps in making business decisions. Software tools such as in CRM and accounting favor our business management and leadership. Trend: Business management and business leadership have proved to be the perfect ingredient in business growth and it’s something that our company possesses in abundance. Recommendations Slimming down of the board and the management team. This way the company will remain more focused on the core function of business, reduce costs and retain the most efficient employees and enterprises only. http://www.unisa.edu.au/strategic/lean-mgt/default.asp. The situation as it is of having a board of directors solely because they have a lot of experience does not auger well in business acumen. Considerations in the law on employees’ safety in the workplace: In the UK for example, there is the Health and Safety at Work etc Act of 1974 which offers various stipulations in the interpretation of safety and risk in the work place to guide employees and employers. The act also puts into consideration the aspect of risk exposed to other stakeholders that might are not directly involved in the production process (Stranks, 2005). In the US, there is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Act (OSHA) which also lays the stipulations to be followed such as provision of effective protective clothing and equipments in the workplace where necessary http://www.managementhelp.org/legal/emp_law/laws/osha.htm. Therefore, our company has to follow such guidelines. By riding on such laws, our organization can explore new markets by emphasizing on the need of protective clothing to employees, employers and stakeholders who are not very keen on safety in the workplace. References Holt, St. John A. (2005), Principles of Health and Safety at Work, 7th Edition, (London, IOSH Services Ltd) Stranks, J. (2005), Health and Safety Law, (London, Prentice Hall) http://www.managementhelp.org/legal/emp_law/laws/osha.htm, (Accessed on 11th Dec2008) http://www.unisa.edu.au/strategic/lean-mgt/default.asp, (Accessed on 12th Dec2008) http://www.dol.gov/osbp/sbrefa/poster/matrix.htm#minwage , (Accessed on 12th Dec2008) Read More