China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good
To maximize their effectiveness, color cases should be printed in color.In early 2010, cleantech investment pioneer Tsing Capital was planning for the China Environment Fund IV and considering how to maintain its commitment to social and environmental practices. Tsing Capital embraced its philosophy of "Doing Well by Doing Good" and developed a proprietary system to manage social & environmental functions throughout the investment process. Some of the specific questions examined in the case are: with a more diversified investor base, how could the firm balance the different expectations of investors and continue to achieve "Doing Well by Doing Good"? Despite the increasing importance of social & environmental practices, they also had a cost for the firm and its portfolio companies. How could the firm most effectively motivate its portfolio companies to actively integrate social & environmental practices with their strategies?
Swot Analysis of "China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good" written by Christopher Marquis, Nancy Hua Dai includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Tsing Environmental facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Financial management, Government, Social responsibility, Sustainability, Venture capital and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good casestudy better are - – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tsing Environmental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tsing Environmental 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tsing Environmental
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Leadership & Managing People field.
4. Making a Leadership & Managing People topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tsing Environmental
Strengths China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tsing Environmental in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good Harvard Business Review case study are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tsing Environmental 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tsing Environmental 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.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tsing Environmental digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tsing Environmental 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.
Learning organization
- Tsing Environmental 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 Tsing Environmental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tsing Environmental in the sector have low bargaining power. China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tsing Environmental to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tsing Environmental to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tsing Environmental to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Tsing Environmental is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Strong track record of project management
– Tsing Environmental is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Tsing Environmental has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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.
High brand equity
– Tsing Environmental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tsing Environmental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tsing Environmental has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tsing Environmental 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.
Organizational Resilience of Tsing Environmental
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Tsing Environmental does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tsing Environmental 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Tsing Environmental 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good HBR case study mentions - Tsing Environmental 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tsing Environmental 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 - China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 Tsing Environmental 's lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tsing Environmental is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Tsing Environmental needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tsing Environmental to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tsing Environmental is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Tsing Environmental, firm in the HBR case study China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good, is just above the industry average. Tsing Environmental 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tsing Environmental 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Christopher Marquis, Nancy Hua Dai suggests that, Tsing Environmental 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.
Opportunities China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good | 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tsing Environmental to increase its market reach. Tsing Environmental 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.
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. Tsing Environmental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tsing Environmental 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, China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tsing Environmental has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Tsing Environmental to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good case study. Tsing Environmental can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Tsing Environmental 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tsing Environmental can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Leadership & Managing People industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tsing Environmental 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. Tsing Environmental 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tsing Environmental 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tsing Environmental to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tsing Environmental 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 Tsing Environmental to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Tsing Environmental can develop new processes and procedures in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tsing Environmental can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tsing Environmental 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Tsing Environmental 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 Leadership & Managing People segment.
Threats China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tsing Environmental has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tsing Environmental needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Leadership & Managing People 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tsing Environmental is facing in Leadership & Managing People sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Leadership & Managing People field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tsing Environmental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Tsing Environmental with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
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 Tsing Environmental business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Tsing Environmental.
Environmental challenges
– Tsing Environmental 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. Tsing Environmental can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tsing Environmental 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
– Tsing Environmental 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.
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 Tsing Environmental in the Leadership & Managing People sector and impact the bottomline 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. Tsing Environmental needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tsing Environmental 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 China Environment Fund: Doing Well by Doing Good 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 Tsing Environmental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.