Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United Kingdom
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings
Strengths of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings are -
Training and development
– Zibao Metals Recycling 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Zibao Metals Recycling 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Analytics focus
– Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
High brand equity
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Weaknesses of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings are -
High dependence on Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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. Fabricated Products industry over the last five years. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings are -
Loyalty marketing
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zibao Metals Recycling 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings are -
Increasing wage structure of Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zibao Metals Recycling 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.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling 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 Zibao Metals Recycling Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
