Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd (2010) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd
Strengths of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd are -
Learning organization
- Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Chemical Manufacturing
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Innovation driven organization
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Training and development
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd are -
High dependence on Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemical Manufacturing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is just above the Chemical Manufacturing 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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 Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd 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.
Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd 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
– Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
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. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
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. Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Zhejiang Transfar Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.