Hong Kong Highpower (HPJ) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hong Kong Highpower (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hong Kong Highpower is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hong Kong Highpower
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hong Kong Highpower can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hong Kong Highpower, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hong Kong Highpower
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hong Kong Highpower
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hong Kong Highpower
Strengths of Hong Kong Highpower | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hong Kong Highpower are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hong Kong Highpower are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Hong Kong Highpower is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry. The technology infrastructure of United States is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Organizational Resilience of Hong Kong Highpower
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hong Kong Highpower does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Appliance & Tool industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hong Kong Highpower digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hong Kong Highpower has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Appliance & Tool industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hong Kong Highpower have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hong Kong Highpower in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Hong Kong Highpower has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hong Kong Highpower to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Appliance & Tool industry
– Hong Kong Highpower is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hong Kong Highpower is present in almost all the verticals within the Appliance & Tool industry. This has provided Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Training and development
– Hong Kong Highpower has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
High brand equity
– Hong Kong Highpower has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hong Kong Highpower to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Weaknesses of Hong Kong Highpower | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hong Kong Highpower are -
Need for greater diversity
– Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hong Kong Highpower needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Appliance & Tool industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hong Kong Highpower can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hong Kong Highpower is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Appliance & Tool industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hong Kong Highpower 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hong Kong Highpower has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Appliance & Tool industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hong Kong Highpower, in the dynamic environment of Appliance & Tool industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hong Kong Highpower has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hong Kong Highpower is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Appliance & Tool industry, but Hong Kong Highpower needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hong Kong Highpower to focus more on services in the Appliance & Tool industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hong Kong Highpower is one of the leading players in the Appliance & Tool industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Appliance & Tool industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hong Kong Highpower has high operating costs in the Appliance & Tool industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hong Kong Highpower lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hong Kong Highpower has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Appliance & Tool industry over the last five years. Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hong Kong Highpower still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Appliance & Tool industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hong Kong Highpower has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Hong Kong Highpower Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hong Kong Highpower are -
Buying journey improvements
– Hong Kong Highpower can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Appliance & Tool 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Appliance & Tool industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hong Kong Highpower 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. Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hong Kong Highpower is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hong Kong Highpower can utilize new technology in the field of Appliance & Tool industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hong Kong Highpower has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Appliance & Tool sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hong Kong Highpower to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hong Kong Highpower to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hong Kong Highpower can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Appliance & Tool industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hong Kong Highpower can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Hong Kong Highpower can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Appliance & Tool 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Appliance & Tool industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hong Kong Highpower in the Appliance & Tool industry. Now Hong Kong Highpower can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hong Kong Highpower can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hong Kong Highpower operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Appliance & Tool sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hong Kong Highpower has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Hong Kong Highpower to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hong Kong Highpower products in the Appliance & Tool industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Threats Hong Kong Highpower External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hong Kong Highpower are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hong Kong Highpower is facing in Appliance & Tool sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Hong Kong Highpower 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. Hong Kong Highpower can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hong Kong Highpower can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hong Kong Highpower in Appliance & Tool industry. The Appliance & Tool 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hong Kong Highpower 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Hong Kong Highpower 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 Appliance & Tool industry regulations.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing wage structure of Hong Kong Highpower
– 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 Hong Kong Highpower.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hong Kong Highpower 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Appliance & Tool industry are lowering. It can presents Hong Kong Highpower with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Appliance & Tool sector.
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 Hong Kong Highpower in the Appliance & Tool sector and impact the bottomline 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 Hong Kong Highpower business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hong Kong Highpower Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower 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 Hong Kong Highpower needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.