Celestial Asia Securities (1049) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Celestial Asia Securities (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Celestial Asia Securities is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Celestial Asia Securities

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Celestial Asia Securities can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Celestial Asia Securities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Celestial Asia Securities 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Celestial Asia Securities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Celestial Asia Securities
2. Improving business portfolio management of Celestial Asia Securities
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Furniture & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Celestial Asia Securities

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Strengths of Celestial Asia Securities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Celestial Asia Securities are -

Ability to lead change in Furniture & Fixtures

– Celestial Asia Securities is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Celestial Asia Securities in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Furniture & Fixtures industry

– Celestial Asia Securities has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Celestial Asia Securities to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Celestial Asia Securities to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Learning organization

- Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Celestial Asia Securities emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Celestial Asia Securities is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Celestial Asia Securities in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Celestial Asia Securities has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Celestial Asia Securities to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Analytics focus

– Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures 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.

Digital Transformation in Furniture & Fixtures industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Celestial Asia Securities digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Celestial Asia Securities has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Celestial Asia Securities staying ahead in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Innovation driven organization

– Celestial Asia Securities is one of the most innovative firm in Furniture & Fixtures sector.

High brand equity

– Celestial Asia Securities has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Celestial Asia Securities to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Celestial Asia Securities has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Celestial Asia Securities 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.

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Weaknesses of Celestial Asia Securities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Celestial Asia Securities are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, Celestial Asia Securities needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures 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 Celestial Asia Securities supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Celestial Asia Securities is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Celestial Asia Securities vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Celestial Asia Securities has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Lack of clear differentiation of Celestial Asia Securities products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Celestial Asia Securities needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Celestial Asia Securities has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.

Skills based hiring in Furniture & Fixtures industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Celestial Asia Securities is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, but Celestial Asia Securities needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Celestial Asia Securities to focus more on services in the Furniture & Fixtures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Celestial Asia Securities is one of the leading players in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Furniture & Fixtures industry in last five years.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Furniture & Fixtures industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.

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Celestial Asia Securities Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Celestial Asia Securities are -

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Celestial Asia Securities to increase its market reach. Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Furniture & Fixtures industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Celestial Asia Securities can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Celestial Asia Securities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Celestial Asia Securities can utilize new technology in the field of Furniture & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Celestial Asia Securities can develop new processes and procedures in Furniture & Fixtures 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.

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 Celestial Asia Securities 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Celestial Asia Securities in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Furniture & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Celestial Asia Securities 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.

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. Celestial Asia Securities can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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Threats Celestial Asia Securities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Celestial Asia Securities are -

Consumer confidence and its impact on Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry and other sectors.

Regulatory challenges

– Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry regulations.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Celestial Asia Securities 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.

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 Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities in Furniture & Fixtures industry. The Furniture & Fixtures 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.

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.

Increasing wage structure of Celestial Asia Securities

– 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 Celestial Asia Securities.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Furniture & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Celestial Asia Securities can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Celestial Asia Securities 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 Furniture & Fixtures industry.

Environmental challenges

– Celestial Asia Securities 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. Celestial Asia Securities can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Furniture & Fixtures industry.

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.

Instability in the European markets

– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Celestial Asia Securities will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Furniture & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Celestial Asia Securities with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Furniture & Fixtures sector.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Celestial Asia Securities Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities 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 Celestial Asia Securities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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