SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for GSH Corporation Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , GSH Corporation Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of GSH Corporation Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that GSH Corporation Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the GSH Corporation Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of GSH Corporation Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of GSH Corporation Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Photography sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of GSH Corporation Ltd
Strengths of GSH Corporation Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of GSH Corporation Ltd are -
Strong track record of project management in the Photography industry
– GSH Corporation Ltd 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
- GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at GSH Corporation Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Photography industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For GSH Corporation Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of GSH Corporation Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing GSH Corporation Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– GSH Corporation Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – GSH Corporation Ltd staying ahead in the Photography industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– GSH Corporation Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled GSH Corporation Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Photography industry
– GSH Corporation Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled GSH Corporation Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Photography industry. The sustainable margins have also helped GSH Corporation Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of GSH Corporation Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Photography 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.
Ability to lead change in Photography
– GSH Corporation Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Photography industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled GSH Corporation Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– GSH Corporation Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Photography industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of GSH Corporation Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of GSH Corporation Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of GSH Corporation Ltd are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, GSH Corporation Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Photography industry over the last five years. GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of GSH Corporation Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Photography 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As GSH Corporation Ltd is one of the leading players in the Photography industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Photography industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at GSH Corporation Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Photography industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. GSH Corporation Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of GSH Corporation Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Photography industry, but GSH Corporation Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help GSH Corporation Ltd to focus more on services in the Photography industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Products dominated business model
– Even though GSH Corporation Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Photography industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. GSH Corporation Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on GSH Corporation Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of GSH Corporation Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Photography industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though GSH Corporation Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that GSH Corporation Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Photography industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at GSH Corporation Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as GSH Corporation Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of GSH Corporation Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, GSH Corporation Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of GSH Corporation Ltd is just above the Photography 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.
GSH Corporation Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of GSH Corporation Ltd are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Photography industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. GSH Corporation Ltd 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. GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
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. GSH Corporation Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, GSH Corporation Ltd can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help GSH Corporation Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, GSH Corporation Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that GSH Corporation Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Photography sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects GSH Corporation Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for GSH Corporation Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Photography industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Photography industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. GSH Corporation Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at GSH Corporation Ltd 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 Photography industry.
Threats GSH Corporation Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of GSH Corporation Ltd 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. GSH Corporation Ltd 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.
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 GSH Corporation Ltd.
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 GSH Corporation Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– GSH Corporation Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Photography industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, GSH Corporation Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Photography 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, GSH Corporation Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Photography sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on GSH Corporation Ltd 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 Photography industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that GSH Corporation Ltd is facing in Photography sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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, GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Photography industry are lowering. It can presents GSH Corporation Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Photography sector.
Environmental challenges
– GSH Corporation Ltd 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. GSH Corporation Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Photography industry.
Increasing wage structure of GSH Corporation Ltd
– 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 GSH Corporation Ltd.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for GSH Corporation Ltd in Photography industry. The Photography 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of GSH Corporation Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd 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 GSH Corporation Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.