Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Leadership & Managing People
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?
Ten years after expanding abroad, Chinese telecommunications equipment maker Huawei faces espionage accusations from the US government, a claim that has shut it out of most of the US market. Now the threat has started to hinder potential deals in Canada, a market it entered only four years ago. This is a market where it has gradually built a market presence with a strategic focus vital to its global research initiatives. Sean Yang, president of Huawei's Canadian operations, must now reaffirm the company's commitment to Canada and regain its customers' trust. This case focuses on the changing competitive landscape in the global and regional environment, and describes the constraints on and advantages of an emerging-markets multinational operating in developed markets. It can also be adopted for teaching external analysis, including PESTEL, five-forces, driving-forces and key success-factor analyses.
Swot Analysis of "Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?" written by Nikhil Celly, Mary Han, Penny Lau includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Huawei Canada facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Emerging markets, Globalization, Government, Sales, Technology and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? casestudy better are - – 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 energy prices, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Huawei Canada, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Huawei Canada 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Huawei Canada
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 Huawei Canada
Strengths Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Huawei Canada in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? Harvard Business Review case study are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Huawei Canada in the sector have low bargaining power. Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Huawei Canada to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Huawei Canada 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Huawei Canada has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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.
Organizational Resilience of Huawei Canada
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Huawei Canada does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Huawei Canada in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Huawei Canada is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Huawei Canada digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Huawei Canada 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.
Strong track record of project management
– Huawei Canada is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Huawei Canada is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Huawei Canada 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 Huawei Canada in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Leadership & Managing People industry
– Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Huawei Canada to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Huawei Canada to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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.
Weaknesses Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Huawei Canada has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? HBR case study mentions - Huawei Canada 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Huawei Canada is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Huawei Canada 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Huawei Canada is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Huawei Canada 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.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei Canada has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Leadership & Managing People strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Huawei Canada 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Huawei Canada 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 - Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?, in the dynamic environment Huawei Canada has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Huawei Canada has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Opportunities Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? | 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Huawei Canada 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
– Huawei Canada 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Huawei Canada 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Huawei Canada can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Huawei Canada can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Huawei Canada can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Leadership & Managing People 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Huawei Canada has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Huawei Canada to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? case study. Huawei Canada can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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. Huawei Canada 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. Huawei Canada 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Huawei Canada is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Huawei Canada 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Huawei Canada to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Huawei Canada 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Huawei Canada in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Leadership & Managing People segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Huawei Canada 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.
Threats Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? are -
Increasing wage structure of Huawei Canada
– 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 Huawei Canada.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Huawei Canada has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Huawei Canada 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Huawei Canada 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Huawei Canada in the Leadership & Managing People industry. The Leadership & Managing People 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Huawei Canada 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? .
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Huawei Canada business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Huawei Canada 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 Leadership & Managing People industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player?, Huawei Canada may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Leadership & Managing People .
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. Huawei Canada 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.
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 Huawei Canada.
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. Huawei Canada needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei in Canada: Can It Become a Trusted Player? 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 Huawei Canada needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.