Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States
The China national image film "People Chapter" - officially a sub-series of the "Experience China" campaign - was launched by the Chinese government to coincide with President Hu Jintao's visit to the United States in mid-January 2011. The one-minute promotional video was played on six giant electronic screens about 300 times per day, and had appeared approximately 8400 times when the broadcast ended on February 14, 2011. The video showed a series of Chinese people, ranging from ordinary citizens to celebrities, in various areas. It was a publicity effort aimed at promoting a truer image of China abroad, and further signalling that China was opening to embrace the world. However, reactions from both Chinese and overseas audiences had been fairly controversial since the initial release of this promotional film. Experts from China and abroad were skeptical of the effectiveness of the campaign in promoting the national image of modern China to the world.
Swot Analysis of "Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States" written by William Wei, Yuanfang Lin, Mei Qin Kok includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that China Image facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing, Public relations, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States casestudy better are - – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the China Image, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which China Image 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of China Image
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of China Image
Strengths Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of China Image in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– China Image has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. China Image 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
– China Image is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Learning organization
- China Image 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 China Image is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– China Image is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that China Image 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– China Image 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of China Image
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that China Image does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– China Image 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 William Wei, Yuanfang Lin, Mei Qin Kok 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of China Image in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For China Image digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. China Image 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 China Image 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.
Weaknesses Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, China Image 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, China Image 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. China Image 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, China Image is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– China Image 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as China Image is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States, is just above the industry average. China Image 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.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at China Image has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States, in the dynamic environment China Image has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. China Image has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States, it seems that the employees of China Image 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, China Image 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China Image, firm in the HBR case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States | 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects China Image 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
– China Image 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.
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. China Image can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help China Image to increase its market reach. China Image 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.
Loyalty marketing
– China Image 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for China Image in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, China Image 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for China Image in the consumer business. Now China Image can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. China Image 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. China Image 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at China Image 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, China Image 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, as suggested in case study, Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– China Image can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, China Image can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that China Image operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Threats Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States are -
Environmental challenges
– China Image 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. China Image can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
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.
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. China Image needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States, China Image may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– China Image has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, China Image needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– China Image 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 field.
Increasing wage structure of China Image
– 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 China Image.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for China Image in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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 China Image business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on China Image 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.
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 China Image.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– China Image 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, China Image 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 Experience China: A National Image Campaign in the United States 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 China Image needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
