Ever-Glory (EVK) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ever-Glory (United States)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ever-Glory is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Ever-Glory

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ever-Glory can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ever-Glory, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ever-Glory 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 Ever-Glory can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ever-Glory
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ever-Glory
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ever-Glory

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Strengths of Ever-Glory | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Ever-Glory are -

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry

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

Highly skilled collaborators

– Ever-Glory has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ever-Glory have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry

– Ever-Glory has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ever-Glory to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ever-Glory to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Ever-Glory is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Ever-Glory 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.

Organizational Resilience of Ever-Glory

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ever-Glory does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Diverse revenue streams

– Ever-Glory is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Ever-Glory 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.

Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ever-Glory digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ever-Glory 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Ever-Glory is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.

High brand equity

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

Learning organization

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

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Weaknesses of Ever-Glory | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Ever-Glory are -

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

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Ever-Glory has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Lack of clear differentiation of Ever-Glory products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ever-Glory needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Ever-Glory is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Apparel/Accessories industry, Ever-Glory 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of United States, Ever-Glory 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 Ever-Glory, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ever-Glory has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Ever-Glory is just above the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Ever-Glory 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.

Employees’ less understanding of Ever-Glory strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ever-Glory don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Apparel/Accessories industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Ever-Glory 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

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Ever-Glory Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Ever-Glory are -

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ever-Glory can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Manufacturing automation

– Ever-Glory can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Apparel/Accessories 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.

Increase in government spending

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ever-Glory 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. Ever-Glory 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Ever-Glory 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ever-Glory 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ever-Glory 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 Ever-Glory to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ever-Glory 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

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

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 Ever-Glory 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.

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Threats Ever-Glory External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Ever-Glory are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Ever-Glory has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ever-Glory needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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 Ever-Glory is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Ever-Glory

– 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 Ever-Glory.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Ever-Glory 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.

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 Ever-Glory.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ever-Glory in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.

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. Ever-Glory needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 Ever-Glory in the Apparel/Accessories sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Apparel/Accessories industry are lowering. It can presents Ever-Glory with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Apparel/Accessories sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Ever-Glory 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ever-Glory may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ever-Glory 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 Ever-Glory prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ever-Glory Template, Example

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

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