SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhejiang Expressway (United Kingdom)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhejiang Expressway is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices,
wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Expressway
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhejiang Expressway can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhejiang Expressway, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhejiang Expressway
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhejiang Expressway
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhejiang Expressway
Strengths of Zhejiang Expressway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhejiang Expressway are -
Training and development
– Zhejiang Expressway has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry
– Zhejiang Expressway is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhejiang Expressway has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhejiang Expressway staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Zhejiang Expressway in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Zhejiang Expressway is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zhejiang Expressway has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zhejiang Expressway have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhejiang Expressway 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
- Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhejiang Expressway emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zhejiang Expressway in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Zhejiang Expressway has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zhejiang Expressway to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Zhejiang Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry. The technology infrastructure of United Kingdom 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry
– Zhejiang Expressway has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zhejiang Expressway to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zhejiang Expressway to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Zhejiang Expressway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhejiang Expressway are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zhejiang Expressway has high operating costs in the Misc. Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zhejiang Expressway lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhejiang Expressway is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Zhejiang Expressway has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Zhejiang Expressway even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on Zhejiang Expressway ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhejiang Expressway still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zhejiang Expressway has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zhejiang Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zhejiang Expressway is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zhejiang Expressway to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zhejiang Expressway is just above the Misc. Transportation industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zhejiang Expressway products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhejiang Expressway needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Zhejiang Expressway Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhejiang Expressway are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Zhejiang Expressway can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation 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 Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zhejiang Expressway can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zhejiang Expressway operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zhejiang Expressway is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zhejiang Expressway can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zhejiang Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zhejiang Expressway has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Zhejiang Expressway to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zhejiang Expressway to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zhejiang Expressway in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now Zhejiang Expressway can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zhejiang Expressway 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. Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zhejiang Expressway has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Zhejiang Expressway to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zhejiang Expressway products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Threats Zhejiang Expressway External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhejiang Expressway are -
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 Zhejiang Expressway business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhejiang Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zhejiang Expressway 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zhejiang Expressway may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation sector.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zhejiang Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.
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 Zhejiang Expressway.
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. Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Zhejiang Expressway in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Zhejiang Expressway 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. Zhejiang Expressway can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Expressway Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway 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 Zhejiang Expressway needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.