Wintime Energy (600157) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Coal
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Wintime Energy (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Wintime Energy is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Wintime Energy can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wintime Energy, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Wintime Energy
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wintime Energy
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Coal sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wintime Energy
Strengths of Wintime Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wintime Energy are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wintime Energy in Coal industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wintime Energy is one of the leading players in the Coal 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.
Organizational Resilience of Wintime Energy
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Wintime Energy does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Wintime Energy emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Wintime Energy has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Wintime Energy to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Wintime Energy 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 Coal 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wintime Energy 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Wintime Energy has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Coal industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Wintime Energy have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Coal
– Wintime Energy is one of the leading players in the Coal industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Coal industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Wintime Energy in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Wintime Energy has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Wintime Energy staying ahead in the Coal industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Coal industry
– Wintime Energy 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
– Wintime Energy is present in almost all the verticals within the Coal industry. This has provided Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wintime Energy are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Wintime Energy needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Wintime Energy, in the dynamic environment of Coal industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Wintime Energy has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wintime Energy has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Coal industry over the last five years. Wintime Energy 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Wintime Energy has high operating costs in the Coal industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Wintime Energy lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Wintime Energy is one of the leading players in the Coal industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Coal industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Wintime Energy is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Coal industry, but Wintime Energy needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Wintime Energy to focus more on services in the Coal industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Wintime Energy strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Wintime Energy 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wintime Energy 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 Coal industry using digital technology.
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 Wintime Energy supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Wintime Energy is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Wintime Energy vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wintime Energy 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.
Skills based hiring in Coal industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Wintime Energy 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.
Wintime Energy Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Wintime Energy are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wintime Energy 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.
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 Wintime Energy 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Wintime Energy can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Coal 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Wintime Energy can develop new processes and procedures in Coal 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wintime Energy 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wintime Energy has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Coal sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Wintime Energy to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wintime Energy to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wintime Energy has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Coal industry. This can help Wintime Energy to build a more holistic ecosystem for Wintime Energy products in the Coal industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Wintime Energy can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wintime Energy is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Wintime Energy can utilize new technology in the field of Coal industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Wintime Energy in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Coal industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wintime Energy to increase its market reach. Wintime Energy 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Wintime Energy 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.
Threats Wintime Energy External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Wintime Energy are -
Environmental challenges
– Wintime Energy 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. Wintime Energy can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Coal industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wintime Energy in Coal industry. The Coal 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.
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 Wintime Energy.
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. Wintime Energy 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.
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 Wintime Energy business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Wintime Energy needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Coal industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Wintime Energy is facing in Coal sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Coal industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy 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 Coal industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wintime Energy 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.
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 Wintime Energy in the Coal sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wintime Energy has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Coal industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wintime Energy needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Coal 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wintime Energy Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy 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 Wintime Energy needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.