Resina: Managing Operations in China SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Resina: Managing Operations in China
Resina is a global manufacturer of resins and surfacing solutions headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, with three production facilities and 12 sales offices in China. The head of Asia Pacific for Resina needs to decide what should be done about Beijing and Guangdong. Should Beijing remain in operation, be shut down, or moved to another area where demand for liquid bulk resins is stronger. Similar options exist in Guangdong. In aiming towards profitable operations, he needs to consider the buoyancy of local demand, Resina's partner in Beijing, local and foreign competitors, and appropriate managers in each operation.
Swot Analysis of "Resina: Managing Operations in China" written by Paul W. Beamish, Jordan Mitchell includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Resina Resins facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Resina: Managing Operations in China case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Joint ventures, Operations management, Risk management and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Resina: Managing Operations in China casestudy better are - – geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Resina: Managing Operations in China
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Resina: Managing Operations in China case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Resina Resins, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Resina Resins 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Resina: Managing Operations in China case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Resina Resins
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Resina Resins
Strengths Resina: Managing Operations in China | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Resina Resins in Resina: Managing Operations in China Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Resina Resins has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Resina: Managing Operations in China 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.
Learning organization
- Resina Resins 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 Resina Resins is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Resina: Managing Operations in China Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Global Business industry
– Resina: Managing Operations in China firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Resina Resins to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Global Business industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Resina Resins to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Resina Resins has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Resina Resins 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Resina Resins 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.
Organizational Resilience of Resina Resins
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Resina Resins does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Global Business field
– Resina Resins 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 Resina Resins in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Resina Resins 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Resina Resins in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Resina Resins is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Resina: Managing Operations in China 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Resina Resins 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management
– Resina Resins is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses Resina: Managing Operations in China | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Resina: Managing Operations in China are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Resina Resins 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Resina Resins 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Resina: Managing Operations in China HBR case study mentions - Resina Resins 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Resina Resins 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Resina Resins 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Resina Resins is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Global Business segment. Resina Resins needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Resina Resins to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Paul W. Beamish, Jordan Mitchell suggests that, Resina Resins 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Resina: Managing Operations in China, in the dynamic environment Resina Resins has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Resina Resins has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Resina Resins has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Resina: Managing Operations in China should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina Resins 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina Resins has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Opportunities Resina: Managing Operations in China | 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China 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. Resina Resins can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Resina Resins is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Resina: Managing Operations in China 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Resina Resins can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Resina Resins operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Global Business sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Resina Resins can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Resina Resins 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Resina Resins 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Resina Resins 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Resina Resins 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 Resina Resins to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Resina Resins can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Resina Resins 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, Resina: Managing Operations in China, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Resina Resins 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Resina Resins 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 Global Business segment.
Manufacturing automation
– Resina Resins can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Global Business segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Resina: Managing Operations in China External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Resina: Managing Operations in China are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Resina Resins 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 Resina Resins with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Resina Resins has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Global Business industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Resina Resins needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Global Business 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Resina Resins in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
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 Resina Resins.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Resina Resins is facing in Global Business sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Resina Resins 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 Global Business industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Resina Resins 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Resina Resins 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, Resina Resins 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China .
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. Resina Resins 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.
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. Resina Resins needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina: Managing Operations in China 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 Resina Resins needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.