China Changjiang Mining (CHJI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for China Changjiang Mining (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , China Changjiang Mining is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of China Changjiang Mining

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that China Changjiang Mining can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the China Changjiang Mining, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which China Changjiang Mining 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of China Changjiang Mining can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of China Changjiang Mining
2. Improving business portfolio management of China Changjiang Mining
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of China Changjiang Mining

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Strengths of China Changjiang Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of China Changjiang Mining are -

Ability to lead change in Metal Mining

– China Changjiang Mining is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in United States. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in United States but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled China Changjiang Mining in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Ability to recruit top talent

– China Changjiang Mining is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Innovation driven organization

– China Changjiang Mining is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.

Strong track record of project management in the Metal Mining industry

– China Changjiang Mining is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

High brand equity

– China Changjiang Mining has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled China Changjiang Mining to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Successful track record of launching new products

– China Changjiang Mining has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. China Changjiang Mining 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of China Changjiang Mining in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry

– China Changjiang Mining has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled China Changjiang Mining to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped China Changjiang Mining to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– China Changjiang Mining is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided China Changjiang Mining 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.

Learning organization

- China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at China Changjiang Mining emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– China Changjiang Mining has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – China Changjiang Mining staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of China Changjiang Mining in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. China Changjiang Mining has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps China Changjiang Mining to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

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Weaknesses of China Changjiang Mining | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of China Changjiang Mining are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As China Changjiang Mining is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

China Changjiang Mining has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of China Changjiang Mining is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but China Changjiang Mining needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help China Changjiang Mining to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at China Changjiang Mining 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, China Changjiang Mining has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Metal Mining industry over the last five years. China Changjiang Mining 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.

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 China Changjiang Mining supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, China Changjiang Mining is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left China Changjiang Mining vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. China Changjiang Mining has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

High dependence on China Changjiang Mining ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of China Changjiang Mining still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though China Changjiang Mining has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of China Changjiang Mining is just above the Metal Mining 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, China Changjiang Mining 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.

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China Changjiang Mining Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of China Changjiang Mining are -

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Metal Mining industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for China Changjiang Mining in the Metal Mining industry. Now China Changjiang Mining can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– China Changjiang Mining has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled China Changjiang Mining to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help China Changjiang Mining to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. China Changjiang Mining 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. China Changjiang Mining 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.

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. China Changjiang Mining can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Loyalty marketing

– China Changjiang Mining 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, China Changjiang Mining is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. China Changjiang Mining can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, China Changjiang Mining can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that China Changjiang Mining operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.

Manufacturing automation

– China Changjiang Mining can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Metal Mining 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects China Changjiang Mining can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Buying journey improvements

– China Changjiang Mining can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.

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Threats China Changjiang Mining External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of China Changjiang Mining are -

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.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, China Changjiang Mining may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.

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. China Changjiang Mining 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.

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 China Changjiang Mining in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline 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 China Changjiang Mining in Metal Mining industry. The Metal Mining 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. China Changjiang Mining can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. China Changjiang Mining needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– China Changjiang Mining 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 Metal Mining industry.

Environmental challenges

– China Changjiang Mining 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. China Changjiang Mining can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Metal Mining industry.

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 China Changjiang Mining.

Consumer confidence and its impact on China Changjiang Mining 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.

Regulatory challenges

– China Changjiang Mining 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– China Changjiang Mining 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of China Changjiang Mining Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining 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 China Changjiang Mining needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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