Asia Energy Logistics (351) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Asia Energy Logistics (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Asia Energy Logistics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Asia Energy Logistics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Asia Energy Logistics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Asia Energy Logistics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Asia Energy Logistics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Asia Energy Logistics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Asia Energy Logistics
Strengths of Asia Energy Logistics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Asia Energy Logistics are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Asia Energy Logistics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Asia Energy Logistics in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Asia Energy Logistics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Asia Energy Logistics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Asia Energy Logistics is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Asia Energy Logistics in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Asia Energy Logistics 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 Water Transportation 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.
High brand equity
– Asia Energy Logistics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Asia Energy Logistics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Asia Energy Logistics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Asia Energy Logistics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Asia Energy Logistics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Asia Energy Logistics comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.
Learning organization
- Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Asia Energy Logistics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Asia Energy Logistics has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Asia Energy Logistics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Asia Energy Logistics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Asia Energy Logistics staying ahead in the Water Transportation 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
– Asia Energy Logistics is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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.
Weaknesses of Asia Energy Logistics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Asia Energy Logistics are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Asia Energy Logistics 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 Water Transportation 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, Asia Energy Logistics is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Asia Energy Logistics to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Asia Energy Logistics, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Asia Energy Logistics has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Asia Energy Logistics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Water Transportation industry over the last five years. Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Asia Energy Logistics is just above the Water Transportation 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Asia Energy Logistics needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Asia Energy Logistics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Asia Energy Logistics is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Asia Energy Logistics strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Asia Energy Logistics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Asia Energy Logistics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Asia Energy Logistics to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Asia Energy Logistics ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Asia Energy Logistics still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Asia Energy Logistics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Asia Energy Logistics has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Asia Energy Logistics should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Asia Energy Logistics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Asia Energy Logistics are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Asia Energy Logistics can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Water Transportation industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Asia Energy Logistics to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Asia Energy Logistics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Asia Energy Logistics can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Asia Energy Logistics 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. Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics 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
– Asia Energy Logistics 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.
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. Asia Energy Logistics can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Asia Energy Logistics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Asia Energy Logistics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Asia Energy Logistics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Asia Energy Logistics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Asia Energy Logistics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Asia Energy Logistics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Asia Energy Logistics to increase its market reach. Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Threats Asia Energy Logistics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Asia Energy Logistics are -
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. Asia Energy Logistics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Asia Energy Logistics.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Asia Energy Logistics 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 Water Transportation industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Asia Energy Logistics with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Asia Energy Logistics can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Asia Energy Logistics 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Asia Energy Logistics 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. Asia Energy Logistics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Asia Energy Logistics is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Asia Energy Logistics 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.
Increasing wage structure of Asia Energy Logistics
– 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 Asia Energy Logistics.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Asia Energy Logistics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics 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 Asia Energy Logistics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.