SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
Strengths of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech are -
Organizational Resilience of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Training and development
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Weaknesses of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech are -
High dependence on Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has high operating costs in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Fabricated Products industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech to increase its market reach. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Threats Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech prominent markets.
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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech.
Regulatory challenges
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Environmental challenges
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Increasing wage structure of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech
– 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
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. Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech 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 Jiangsu Zhongtian Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.