Union Asia Enterprise (8173) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Coal
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Union Asia Enterprise (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Union Asia Enterprise is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Union Asia Enterprise
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Union Asia Enterprise can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Union Asia Enterprise, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Union Asia Enterprise
2. Improving business portfolio management of Union Asia Enterprise
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Coal sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Union Asia Enterprise
Strengths of Union Asia Enterprise | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Union Asia Enterprise are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Union Asia Enterprise is one of the leading players in the Coal 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Union Asia Enterprise has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Coal industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Union Asia Enterprise have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Learning organization
- Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Union Asia Enterprise emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Union Asia Enterprise 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 Coal 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 Coal industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Union Asia Enterprise digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Coal industry
– Union Asia Enterprise is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Coal
– Union Asia Enterprise is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Coal industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Union Asia Enterprise in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Union Asia Enterprise has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Union Asia Enterprise staying ahead in the Coal industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Union Asia Enterprise is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided Union Asia Enterprise 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Coal 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.
Weaknesses of Union Asia Enterprise | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Union Asia Enterprise are -
High dependence on Union Asia Enterprise ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Union Asia Enterprise still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Coal industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Union Asia Enterprise has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Union Asia Enterprise has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Coal industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Union Asia Enterprise is one of the leading players in the Coal industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Coal industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Union Asia Enterprise products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Union Asia Enterprise needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Coal industry, Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Union Asia Enterprise needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Coal industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Union Asia Enterprise can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Union Asia Enterprise is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Union Asia Enterprise needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Union Asia Enterprise is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Union Asia Enterprise to provide better information regarding Coal products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Union Asia Enterprise, in the dynamic environment of Coal industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Union Asia Enterprise has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Union Asia Enterprise strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Union Asia Enterprise Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Union Asia Enterprise are -
Buying journey improvements
– Union Asia Enterprise can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Coal 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Union Asia Enterprise has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help Union Asia Enterprise to build a more holistic ecosystem for Union Asia Enterprise products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Union Asia Enterprise in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Coal industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Union Asia Enterprise to increase its market reach. Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Union Asia Enterprise can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Union Asia Enterprise operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Coal sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Coal industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Union Asia Enterprise in the Coal industry. Now Union Asia Enterprise can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Union Asia Enterprise has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Coal sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Union Asia Enterprise to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Union Asia Enterprise to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Coal industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Union Asia Enterprise 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. Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Union Asia Enterprise is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Union Asia Enterprise can utilize new technology in the field of Coal industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Union Asia Enterprise External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Union Asia Enterprise are -
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 Coal industry are lowering. It can presents Union Asia Enterprise with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Coal sector.
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. Union Asia Enterprise needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Coal industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Union Asia Enterprise in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Union Asia Enterprise
– 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 Union Asia Enterprise.
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.
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 Union Asia Enterprise business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Union Asia Enterprise is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Union Asia Enterprise 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.
Environmental challenges
– Union Asia Enterprise 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. Union Asia Enterprise can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Union Asia Enterprise Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise 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 Union Asia Enterprise needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
