SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sunlight 1977 (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sunlight 1977 is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sunlight 1977 can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunlight 1977, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sunlight 1977
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunlight 1977
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sunlight 1977
Strengths of Sunlight 1977 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunlight 1977 are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sunlight 1977 has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sunlight 1977 staying ahead in the Containers & Packaging industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Sunlight 1977 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sunlight 1977 is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sunlight 1977 in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Sunlight 1977 has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sunlight 1977 to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sunlight 1977 comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sunlight 1977
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sunlight 1977 does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sunlight 1977 has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Containers & Packaging industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sunlight 1977 have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sunlight 1977 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sunlight 1977 has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sunlight 1977 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Containers & Packaging industry
– Sunlight 1977 has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunlight 1977 to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunlight 1977 to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Sunlight 1977 | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunlight 1977 are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sunlight 1977, in the dynamic environment of Containers & Packaging industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sunlight 1977 has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunlight 1977 products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunlight 1977 needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sunlight 1977, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Containers & Packaging 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.
Skills based hiring in Containers & Packaging industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sunlight 1977 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sunlight 1977 has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sunlight 1977 should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Sunlight 1977 ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sunlight 1977 still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Containers & Packaging industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sunlight 1977 has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Need for greater diversity
– Sunlight 1977 has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sunlight 1977 has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Containers & Packaging industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Sunlight 1977 strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sunlight 1977 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Sunlight 1977 needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sunlight 1977 is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry in last five years.
Sunlight 1977 Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sunlight 1977 are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sunlight 1977 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
– Sunlight 1977 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sunlight 1977 is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sunlight 1977 can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Containers & Packaging industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sunlight 1977 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. Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sunlight 1977 can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Sunlight 1977 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. Sunlight 1977 can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sunlight 1977 can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sunlight 1977 operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Containers & Packaging sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunlight 1977 can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sunlight 1977 can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sunlight 1977 in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Sunlight 1977 External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sunlight 1977 are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
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. Sunlight 1977 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Sunlight 1977 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. Sunlight 1977 can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry.
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 Sunlight 1977 in the Containers & Packaging sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sunlight 1977 can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sunlight 1977 is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Containers & Packaging industry are lowering. It can presents Sunlight 1977 with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Containers & Packaging sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sunlight 1977 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
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 Sunlight 1977 business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Increasing wage structure of Sunlight 1977
– 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 Sunlight 1977.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunlight 1977 Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 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 Sunlight 1977 needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.