China Chuanglian Education (2371) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Advertising
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for China Chuanglian Education (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , China Chuanglian Education is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of China Chuanglian Education
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that China Chuanglian Education can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the China Chuanglian Education, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which China Chuanglian Education 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 Chuanglian Education can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of China Chuanglian Education
2. Improving business portfolio management of China Chuanglian Education
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of China Chuanglian Education
Strengths of China Chuanglian Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of China Chuanglian Education are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of China Chuanglian Education in Advertising industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– China Chuanglian Education is present in almost all the verticals within the Advertising industry. This has provided China Chuanglian Education 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.
Digital Transformation in Advertising industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For China Chuanglian Education digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. China Chuanglian Education 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.
Innovation driven organization
– China Chuanglian Education is one of the most innovative firm in Advertising sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Advertising industry
– China Chuanglian Education has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled China Chuanglian Education to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Advertising industry. The sustainable margins have also helped China Chuanglian Education to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– China Chuanglian Education has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Advertising industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of China Chuanglian Education have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- China Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at China Chuanglian Education emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– China Chuanglian Education 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 Advertising industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to recruit top talent
– China Chuanglian Education is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Advertising
– China Chuanglian Education is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Advertising industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled China Chuanglian Education in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that China Chuanglian Education 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.
Training and development
– China Chuanglian Education has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Weaknesses of China Chuanglian Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of China Chuanglian Education are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, China Chuanglian Education is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help China Chuanglian Education to provide better information regarding Advertising products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
China Chuanglian Education has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Advertising industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that China Chuanglian Education needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Advertising industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at China Chuanglian Education can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as China Chuanglian Education is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As China Chuanglian Education is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Advertising industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at China Chuanglian Education, in the dynamic environment of Advertising industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. China Chuanglian Education has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 China Chuanglian Education supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, China Chuanglian Education is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left China Chuanglian Education vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, China Chuanglian Education needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, China Chuanglian Education 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 Advertising industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of China Chuanglian Education is just above the Advertising industry average. It 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of China Chuanglian Education, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Advertising industry. 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.
High dependence on China Chuanglian Education ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of China Chuanglian Education still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Advertising industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though China Chuanglian Education has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
China Chuanglian Education Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of China Chuanglian Education are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of China Chuanglian Education has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Advertising industry. This can help China Chuanglian Education to build a more holistic ecosystem for China Chuanglian Education products in the Advertising industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Advertising industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. China Chuanglian Education can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 China Chuanglian Education 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, China Chuanglian Education can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that China Chuanglian Education operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Advertising sector.
Buying journey improvements
– China Chuanglian Education can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It 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.
Loyalty marketing
– China Chuanglian Education 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, China Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help China Chuanglian Education to increase its market reach. China Chuanglian Education 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– China Chuanglian Education can develop new processes and procedures in Advertising 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.
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. China Chuanglian Education 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, China Chuanglian Education is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. China Chuanglian Education can utilize new technology in the field of Advertising industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– China Chuanglian Education has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Advertising sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled China Chuanglian Education to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help China Chuanglian Education to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Advertising industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. China Chuanglian Education 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. China Chuanglian Education 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.
Threats China Chuanglian Education External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of China Chuanglian Education are -
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 China Chuanglian Education business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for China Chuanglian Education in Advertising industry. The Advertising 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Advertising industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. China Chuanglian Education can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents China Chuanglian Education with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– China Chuanglian Education has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Advertising industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, China Chuanglian Education needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Advertising 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.
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. China Chuanglian Education needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Advertising 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, China Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– China Chuanglian Education 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 Advertising industry.
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 China Chuanglian Education.
Environmental challenges
– China Chuanglian Education 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. China Chuanglian Education can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
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 China Chuanglian Education in the Advertising sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– China Chuanglian Education 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 Advertising industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of China Chuanglian Education Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at China Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education 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 Chuanglian Education 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 China Chuanglian Education needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.