SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Winshine Science (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Winshine Science is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Winshine Science can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Winshine Science, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Winshine Science
2. Improving business portfolio management of Winshine Science
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Winshine Science
Strengths of Winshine Science | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Winshine Science are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Winshine Science are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Winshine Science is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Products industry. This has provided Winshine Science 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry
– Winshine Science has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Winshine Science to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Winshine Science to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Recreational Products
– Winshine Science is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Products industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Winshine Science in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Winshine Science emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Winshine Science has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Winshine Science 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Winshine Science is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Products sector.
High brand equity
– Winshine Science has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Winshine Science to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Winshine Science comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Products 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Winshine Science has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Winshine Science staying ahead in the Recreational Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Winshine Science is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Winshine Science in Recreational Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Winshine Science | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Winshine Science are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Winshine Science is just above the Recreational Products 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Winshine Science has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Winshine Science should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Winshine Science is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Products industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Winshine Science has high operating costs in the Recreational Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Winshine Science lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Winshine Science is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Products industry, but Winshine Science needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Winshine Science to focus more on services in the Recreational Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Winshine Science strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Winshine Science 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Winshine Science has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
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 Winshine Science supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Winshine Science is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Winshine Science vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Winshine Science 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 Recreational Products industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Winshine Science has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Recreational Products industry over the last five years. Winshine Science even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Skills based hiring in Recreational Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Winshine Science 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.
Winshine Science Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Winshine Science are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Recreational Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Winshine Science can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Winshine Science 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Winshine Science can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Products 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Winshine Science 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Winshine Science has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Winshine Science to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Winshine Science 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 Recreational Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Winshine Science 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. Winshine Science 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Winshine Science can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Winshine Science can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Winshine Science operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Products sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Winshine Science in the Recreational Products industry. Now Winshine Science can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Winshine Science 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Winshine Science 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Winshine Science can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Products sector. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Winshine Science are -
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 Winshine Science in the Recreational Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science prominent markets.
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 Winshine Science.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Products industry are lowering. It can presents Winshine Science with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Products sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Winshine Science has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Winshine Science needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Products 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Winshine Science can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Winshine Science needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Winshine Science 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. Winshine Science can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Products industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Winshine Science may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Products sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Winshine Science 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 Recreational Products industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Winshine Science in Recreational Products industry. The Recreational Products 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Winshine Science 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 Recreational Products industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Winshine Science Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science 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 Winshine Science needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.