New Hope Liuhe A (876) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for New Hope Liuhe A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , New Hope Liuhe A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that New Hope Liuhe A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the New Hope Liuhe A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of New Hope Liuhe A
2. Improving business portfolio management of New Hope Liuhe A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of New Hope Liuhe A
Strengths of New Hope Liuhe A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of New Hope Liuhe A are -
Diverse revenue streams
– New Hope Liuhe A is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Training and development
– New Hope Liuhe A has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– New Hope Liuhe A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – New Hope Liuhe A staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at New Hope Liuhe A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of New Hope Liuhe A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing New Hope Liuhe A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For New Hope Liuhe A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– New Hope Liuhe A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Analytics focus
– New Hope Liuhe A 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 Food Processing industry. The technology infrastructure of China 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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– New Hope Liuhe A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled New Hope Liuhe A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– New Hope Liuhe A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled New Hope Liuhe A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped New Hope Liuhe A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of New Hope Liuhe A in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. New Hope Liuhe A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps New Hope Liuhe A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– New Hope Liuhe A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of New Hope Liuhe A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of New Hope Liuhe A are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that New Hope Liuhe A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at New Hope Liuhe A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as New Hope Liuhe A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at New Hope Liuhe A, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. New Hope Liuhe A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As New Hope Liuhe A is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of New Hope Liuhe A is just above the Food Processing 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, New Hope Liuhe A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, New Hope Liuhe A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help New Hope Liuhe A to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, New Hope Liuhe A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 New Hope Liuhe A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, New Hope Liuhe A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left New Hope Liuhe A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at New Hope Liuhe A 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.
New Hope Liuhe A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of New Hope Liuhe A are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– New Hope Liuhe A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled New Hope Liuhe A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help New Hope Liuhe A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, New Hope Liuhe A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that New Hope Liuhe A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. New Hope Liuhe A 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. New Hope Liuhe A 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
– New Hope Liuhe A 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, New Hope Liuhe A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. New Hope Liuhe A can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– New Hope Liuhe A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Manufacturing automation
– New Hope Liuhe A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of New Hope Liuhe A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help New Hope Liuhe A to build a more holistic ecosystem for New Hope Liuhe A products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats New Hope Liuhe A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of New Hope Liuhe A are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. New Hope Liuhe A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– New Hope Liuhe A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, New Hope Liuhe A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.
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
– New Hope Liuhe A 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for New Hope Liuhe A in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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 New Hope Liuhe A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, New Hope Liuhe A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
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. New Hope Liuhe A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing 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 New Hope Liuhe A in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– New Hope Liuhe A 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that New Hope Liuhe A is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– New Hope Liuhe A 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. New Hope Liuhe A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents New Hope Liuhe A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of New Hope Liuhe A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A 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 New Hope Liuhe A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.