SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GD Express Carrier (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GD Express Carrier is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, 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 GD Express Carrier
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GD Express Carrier can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GD Express Carrier, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GD Express Carrier
2. Improving business portfolio management of GD Express Carrier
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GD Express Carrier
Strengths of GD Express Carrier | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GD Express Carrier are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– GD Express Carrier has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – GD Express Carrier staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Trucking
– GD Express Carrier is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Malaysia. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Trucking industry in Malaysia but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GD Express Carrier in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GD Express Carrier has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Trucking industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GD Express Carrier have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– GD Express Carrier is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– GD Express Carrier is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GD Express Carrier emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– GD Express Carrier has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. GD Express Carrier 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– GD Express Carrier is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of GD Express Carrier in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. GD Express Carrier has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps GD Express Carrier to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GD Express Carrier comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Trucking 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.
Training and development
– GD Express Carrier 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.
Analytics focus
– GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking industry. The technology infrastructure of Malaysia 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.
Weaknesses of GD Express Carrier | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GD Express Carrier are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of GD Express Carrier, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Trucking 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, GD Express Carrier has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Trucking industry over the last five years. GD Express Carrier 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though GD Express Carrier has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. GD Express Carrier should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Trucking industry, GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at GD Express Carrier can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as GD Express Carrier is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of GD Express Carrier products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GD Express Carrier needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at GD Express Carrier, in the dynamic environment of Trucking industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. GD Express Carrier has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, GD Express Carrier 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of GD Express Carrier is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but GD Express Carrier needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help GD Express Carrier to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 GD Express Carrier supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, GD Express Carrier is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left GD Express Carrier vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
GD Express Carrier Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GD Express Carrier are -
Buying journey improvements
– GD Express Carrier can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, GD Express Carrier 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for GD Express Carrier 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
– GD Express Carrier 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Trucking industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for GD Express Carrier in the Trucking industry. Now GD Express Carrier can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of GD Express Carrier has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Trucking industry. This can help GD Express Carrier to build a more holistic ecosystem for GD Express Carrier products in the Trucking industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking industry.
Manufacturing automation
– GD Express Carrier can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Trucking sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– GD Express Carrier 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– GD Express Carrier can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. GD Express Carrier 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. GD Express Carrier 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.
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 GD Express Carrier 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.
Threats GD Express Carrier External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GD Express Carrier are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– GD Express Carrier has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, GD Express Carrier needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for GD Express Carrier in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.
Increasing wage structure of GD Express Carrier
– 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 GD Express Carrier.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, GD Express Carrier may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Trucking sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that GD Express Carrier is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– GD Express Carrier 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. GD Express Carrier can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Trucking industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– GD Express Carrier 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 Trucking 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 GD Express Carrier business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Trucking industry are lowering. It can presents GD Express Carrier with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Trucking sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GD Express Carrier Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier 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 GD Express Carrier needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.