Great World Company Holdings (8003) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Metal Mining
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Great World Company Holdings (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Great World Company Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Great World Company Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Great World Company Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Great World Company Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Great World Company Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Great World Company Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Great World Company Holdings
Strengths of Great World Company Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Great World Company Holdings are -
Analytics focus
– Great World Company Holdings 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 Metal Mining 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Great World Company Holdings in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Great World Company Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Great World Company Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Great World Company Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Great World Company Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Great World Company Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Great World Company Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Great World Company Holdings 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Great World Company Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Great World Company Holdings staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Great World Company Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Great World Company Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Great World Company Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Great World Company Holdings is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Great World Company Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Great World Company Holdings 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.
Training and development
– Great World Company Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Great World Company Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Great World Company Holdings in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Great World Company Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Great World Company Holdings are -
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Great World Company Holdings 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Great World Company Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Great World Company Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Great World Company Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Great World Company Holdings to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Great World Company Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Great World Company Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Great World Company Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Great World Company Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Great World Company Holdings 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Great World Company Holdings has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Great World Company Holdings lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Great World Company Holdings is just above the Metal Mining 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Great World Company Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Great World Company Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry using digital technology.
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 Great World Company Holdings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Great World Company Holdings is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Great World Company Holdings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Great World Company Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Great World Company Holdings are -
Buying journey improvements
– Great World Company Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Great World Company Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Great World Company Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Great World Company Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Great World Company Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Great World Company Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Great World Company Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Great World Company Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Great World Company Holdings 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. Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Great World Company Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Great World Company Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Great World Company Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Great World Company Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Great World Company Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Great World Company Holdings products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Great World Company Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry.
Threats Great World Company Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Great World Company Holdings are -
Increasing wage structure of Great World Company Holdings
– 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 Great World Company Holdings.
Regulatory challenges
– Great World Company Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Great World Company Holdings is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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
– Great World Company Holdings 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Great World Company Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Great World Company Holdings 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
– Great World Company Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Great World Company Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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. Great World Company Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Great World Company Holdings 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 Metal Mining industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Great World Company Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Great World Company Holdings in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.
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 Great World Company Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Great World Company Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings 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 Great World Company Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
