Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy
Between 1999 and 2017, the Roaring Dragon Hotel (RDH) evolved from a state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a modern, market-driven 5-star accommodation provider, experiencing a combination of market economy and privatization forces. Its initial operations under the new status progressed from the poor performance and management practices of China's planned economy to a portfolio of operational and strategic reforms that saw it become semi-privatized in 2005, and a fully privatized 5-star accommodation provider by 2017. On the surface, this model of evolution would make any Chinese national proud. However, what was perceived from the outside did not necessarily reflect what was occurring within. Market evolution had produced complex challenges related to employee loyalty, competition, internal resistance to change, promotion prospects, management, and the continuation of questionable practices. What changes should management make in the second half of 2017 to continue the hotel's transition to a modern global hotel, turn around its declining revenue, and improve its competitive outcomes? Stephen Grainger is affiliated with University of Notre Dame Australia.
Swot Analysis of "Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy" written by Stephen Grainger includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Roaring Dragon facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economy, Organizational culture and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy casestudy better are - – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Roaring Dragon, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Roaring Dragon
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Roaring Dragon
Strengths Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Roaring Dragon in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy Harvard Business Review case study are -
Organizational Resilience of Roaring Dragon
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Roaring Dragon does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Roaring Dragon is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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.
Learning organization
- Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Roaring Dragon in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Roaring Dragon is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Roaring Dragon has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Roaring Dragon has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Roaring Dragon to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Roaring Dragon is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Roaring Dragon has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Roaring Dragon 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Roaring Dragon 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 Stephen Grainger 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.
Weaknesses Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Roaring Dragon has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Roaring Dragon is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Roaring Dragon is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Roaring Dragon needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Roaring Dragon to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Roaring Dragon has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Stephen Grainger suggests that, Roaring Dragon 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Roaring Dragon products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Roaring Dragon needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Roaring Dragon is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy, in the dynamic environment Roaring Dragon has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Roaring Dragon has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Roaring Dragon 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon, firm in the HBR case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Opportunities Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy | 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy are -
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. Roaring Dragon can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Roaring Dragon has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Roaring Dragon to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy case study. Roaring Dragon can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Roaring Dragon can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Roaring Dragon 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.
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 Roaring Dragon 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Roaring Dragon in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon to increase its market reach. Roaring Dragon 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Roaring Dragon 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. Roaring Dragon 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Roaring Dragon 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Roaring Dragon 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Roaring Dragon can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy are -
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. Roaring Dragon needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Roaring Dragon has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Roaring Dragon needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
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. Roaring Dragon 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Roaring Dragon 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Roaring Dragon 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy .
Regulatory challenges
– Roaring Dragon 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry regulations.
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 Roaring Dragon.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Roaring Dragon 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Roaring Dragon is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
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 Roaring Dragon in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Roaring Dragon 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy, Roaring Dragon may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon Hotel: Problems Adapting to the Chinese Market Economy 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 Roaring Dragon needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
