Li Ning--Anything is Possible SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Li Ning--Anything is Possible
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.A leading sporting goods company in China competes aggressively against global brands Nike and Adidas, with marketing strategies adapted to geographic segments. In the main cities, where competition takes place at a very conceptual level, Li Ning has chosen to adopt a very controversial "oriental theme" for its brand, while becoming at the same time a major sponsor of international athletes of the highest caliber.
Swot Analysis of "Li Ning--Anything is Possible" written by Luc Wathieu includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Ning Li facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, International business and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Li Ning--Anything is Possible casestudy better are - – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Li Ning--Anything is Possible
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ning Li, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ning Li 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 Li Ning--Anything is Possible can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ning Li
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ning Li
Strengths Li Ning--Anything is Possible | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ning Li in Li Ning--Anything is Possible Harvard Business Review case study are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Sales & Marketing industry
– Li Ning--Anything is Possible firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ning Li to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ning Li to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ning Li in the sector have low bargaining power. Li Ning--Anything is Possible has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ning Li to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Li Ning--Anything is Possible Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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
– Ning Li 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Luc Wathieu can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ning Li 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.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Ning Li is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Ning Li in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ning Li 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ning Li has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ning Li has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ning Li 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Ning Li is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Li Ning--Anything is Possible Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Training and development
– Ning Li has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Li Ning--Anything is Possible Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ning Li is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study 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.
Weaknesses Li Ning--Anything is Possible | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Li Ning--Anything is Possible are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ning Li 's lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Luc Wathieu suggests that, Ning Li 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 industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Sales & Marketing strategy. 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Li Ning--Anything is Possible can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ning Li is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ning Li has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ning Li is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Ning Li needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ning Li to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ning Li products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ning Li needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Ning Li 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ning Li 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, Ning Li has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Ning Li 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Li Ning--Anything is Possible HBR case study mentions - Ning Li takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Opportunities Li Ning--Anything is Possible | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ning Li has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Ning Li to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study. Ning Li can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ning Li 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 Ning Li to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Ning Li 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ning Li 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 Ning Li in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ning Li is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Li Ning--Anything is Possible case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ning Li 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ning Li 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ning Li 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ning Li has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ning Li to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Ning Li can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Li Ning--Anything is Possible suggest that firm 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ning Li 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. Ning Li 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ning Li can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ning Li operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Threats Li Ning--Anything is Possible External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ning Li can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Ning Li 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. Ning Li can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Sales & Marketing industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ning Li 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible .
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 Ning Li business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ning Li is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible, Ning Li may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
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 Ning Li in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ning Li 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Ning Li with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ning Li 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 the industry and other sectors.
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. Ning Li 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Li Ning--Anything is Possible Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible 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 the case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible 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 the Harvard case study Li Ning--Anything is Possible 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 Li Ning--Anything is Possible is 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 Ning Li needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
