SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jardine C&C (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jardine C&C is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jardine C&C can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jardine C&C, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jardine C&C
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jardine C&C
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jardine C&C
Strengths of Jardine C&C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jardine C&C are -
Organizational Resilience of Jardine C&C
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jardine C&C does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jardine C&C in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Jardine C&C has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jardine C&C to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jardine C&C has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jardine C&C staying ahead in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jardine C&C emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jardine C&C in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– Jardine C&C has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jardine C&C to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jardine C&C to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Jardine C&C has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jardine C&C to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jardine C&C has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Jardine C&C have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jardine C&C is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This has provided Jardine C&C 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jardine C&C comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jardine C&C digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jardine C&C 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jardine C&C is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Weaknesses of Jardine C&C | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jardine C&C are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jardine C&C has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jardine C&C lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jardine C&C products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jardine C&C needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jardine C&C has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry over the last five years. Jardine C&C 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Jardine C&C 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, Jardine C&C 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Jardine C&C is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jardine C&C is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jardine C&C to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Manufacturers products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Jardine C&C needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jardine C&C, in the dynamic environment of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jardine C&C has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jardine C&C 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jardine C&C needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jardine C&C can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jardine C&C is planning to shift buying processes online.
Jardine C&C Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jardine C&C are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Jardine C&C can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jardine C&C can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Jardine C&C can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jardine C&C has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jardine C&C to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Jardine C&C can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jardine C&C 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jardine C&C 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jardine C&C 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jardine C&C can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jardine C&C operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jardine C&C to increase its market reach. Jardine C&C 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jardine C&C can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Threats Jardine C&C External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jardine C&C are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jardine C&C in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jardine C&C 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jardine C&C 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry are lowering. It can presents Jardine C&C with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jardine C&C can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jardine C&C is facing in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jardine C&C may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
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.
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 Jardine C&C business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jardine C&C 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Jardine C&C 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jardine C&C Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C 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 Jardine C&C needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.