Sin Heng Chan (SHCS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Crops
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sin Heng Chan (Malaysia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sin Heng Chan is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sin Heng Chan can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sin Heng Chan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sin Heng Chan
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sin Heng Chan
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sin Heng Chan
Strengths of Sin Heng Chan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sin Heng Chan are -
Strong track record of project management in the Crops industry
– Sin Heng Chan is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Sin Heng Chan
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sin Heng Chan does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Crops industry
– Sin Heng Chan has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sin Heng Chan to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Crops industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sin Heng Chan to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Sin Heng Chan has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sin Heng Chan to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sin Heng Chan is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Sin Heng Chan 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sin Heng Chan has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sin Heng Chan 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sin Heng Chan 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.
Analytics focus
– Sin Heng Chan 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 Crops 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.
Training and development
– Sin Heng Chan has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sin Heng Chan in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Sin Heng Chan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sin Heng Chan to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sin Heng Chan has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Crops industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sin Heng Chan have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sin Heng Chan emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Sin Heng Chan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sin Heng Chan are -
Need for greater diversity
– Sin Heng Chan 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, Sin Heng Chan 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sin Heng Chan 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Crops industry, Sin Heng Chan 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sin Heng Chan is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sin Heng Chan to provide better information regarding Crops products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Sin Heng Chan ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sin Heng Chan still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Crops industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sin Heng Chan has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sin Heng Chan has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops 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 Sin Heng Chan is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sin Heng Chan, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sin Heng Chan has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sin Heng Chan has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sin Heng Chan lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sin Heng Chan has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Sin Heng Chan 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.
Sin Heng Chan Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sin Heng Chan are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sin Heng Chan 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Crops industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sin Heng Chan 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. Sin Heng Chan 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sin Heng Chan 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 Crops industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sin Heng Chan is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sin Heng Chan can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sin Heng Chan has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Sin Heng Chan to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sin Heng Chan products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Sin Heng Chan can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sin Heng Chan can develop new processes and procedures in Crops 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Crops industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sin Heng Chan in the Crops industry. Now Sin Heng Chan can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Sin Heng Chan 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.
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 Sin Heng Chan 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sin Heng Chan has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Crops sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sin Heng Chan to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sin Heng Chan to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sin Heng Chan in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sin Heng Chan to increase its market reach. Sin Heng Chan 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.
Threats Sin Heng Chan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sin Heng Chan are -
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. Sin Heng Chan 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sin Heng Chan 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
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. Sin Heng Chan needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sin Heng Chan has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sin Heng Chan needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sin Heng Chan is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Sin Heng Chan
– 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 Sin Heng Chan.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Crops industry are lowering. It can presents Sin Heng Chan with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Crops sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sin Heng Chan in Crops industry. The Crops 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Sin Heng Chan 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 Crops industry regulations.
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.
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 Sin Heng Chan.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sin Heng Chan Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan 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 Sin Heng Chan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
