Swot Analysis of "CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages" written by Michael Chu, John S. Ji, Nancy Hua Dai includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Cuncunle Empowering facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Leadership & Managing People.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages casestudy better are - – increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cuncunle Empowering, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cuncunle Empowering 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cuncunle Empowering
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 Cuncunle Empowering
Strengths CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cuncunle Empowering in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cuncunle Empowering is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cuncunle Empowering is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Cuncunle Empowering is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Cuncunle Empowering 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 Michael Chu, John S. Ji, Nancy Hua Dai can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cuncunle Empowering in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Cuncunle Empowering has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cuncunle Empowering to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cuncunle Empowering 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Leadership & Managing People segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cuncunle Empowering digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cuncunle Empowering 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cuncunle Empowering has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Ability to lead change in Leadership & Managing People field
– Cuncunle Empowering 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 Cuncunle Empowering in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cuncunle Empowering 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages are -
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Cuncunle Empowering supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Cuncunle Empowering vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cuncunle Empowering is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Leadership & Managing People segment. Cuncunle Empowering needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cuncunle Empowering to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cuncunle Empowering products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cuncunle Empowering needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages HBR case study mentions - Cuncunle Empowering 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 Cuncunle Empowering 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 - CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cuncunle Empowering is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages, 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages, it seems that the employees of Cuncunle Empowering don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages, is just above the industry average. Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Opportunities CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages | 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages are -
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 Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
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. Cuncunle Empowering 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. Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cuncunle Empowering is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Cuncunle Empowering can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cuncunle Empowering has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Cuncunle Empowering to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages case study. Cuncunle Empowering can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cuncunle Empowering can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cuncunle Empowering 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cuncunle Empowering 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, Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Threats CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages are -
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. Cuncunle Empowering 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
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. Cuncunle Empowering needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Leadership & Managing People industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cuncunle Empowering 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages .
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cuncunle Empowering 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.
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 Cuncunle Empowering.
Increasing wage structure of Cuncunle Empowering
– 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 Cuncunle Empowering.
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. Cuncunle Empowering can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cuncunle Empowering has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Leadership & Managing People industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cuncunle Empowering 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.
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 Cuncunle Empowering business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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 CunCunLe: Empowering China's Rural Villages 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 Cuncunle Empowering needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.