SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Baotou Beifang Chuangye (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Baotou Beifang Chuangye is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Baotou Beifang Chuangye
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Baotou Beifang Chuangye can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Baotou Beifang Chuangye, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Baotou Beifang Chuangye
2. Improving business portfolio management of Baotou Beifang Chuangye
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Railroads sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Baotou Beifang Chuangye
Strengths of Baotou Beifang Chuangye | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Baotou Beifang Chuangye are -
Analytics focus
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads 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 recruit top talent
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye is one of the leading players in the Railroads 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.
Training and development
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Organizational Resilience of Baotou Beifang Chuangye
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Baotou Beifang Chuangye does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Railroads industry
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Baotou Beifang Chuangye to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Railroads industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Baotou Beifang Chuangye to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Baotou Beifang Chuangye staying ahead in the Railroads industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Baotou Beifang Chuangye emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Railroads industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Baotou Beifang Chuangye have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Baotou Beifang Chuangye in Railroads industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Railroads industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Baotou Beifang Chuangye digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye is present in almost all the verticals within the Railroads industry. This has provided Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Baotou Beifang Chuangye are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Baotou Beifang Chuangye needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Railroads industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Baotou Beifang Chuangye can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Baotou Beifang Chuangye is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Baotou Beifang Chuangye is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Baotou Beifang Chuangye to provide better information regarding Railroads products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Railroads industry, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Baotou Beifang Chuangye has some of the most successful models in the Railroads industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Baotou Beifang Chuangye should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Railroads industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry.
Skills based hiring in Railroads industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Baotou Beifang Chuangye strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Railroads 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Baotou Beifang Chuangye, in the dynamic environment of Railroads industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Baotou Beifang Chuangye has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Baotou Beifang Chuangye Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Baotou Beifang Chuangye are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Railroads industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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. Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Baotou Beifang Chuangye in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Railroads industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Railroads industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Baotou Beifang Chuangye in the Railroads industry. Now Baotou Beifang Chuangye can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Baotou Beifang Chuangye can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Baotou Beifang Chuangye can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Baotou Beifang Chuangye can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Baotou Beifang Chuangye operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Railroads sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Baotou Beifang Chuangye is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Baotou Beifang Chuangye can utilize new technology in the field of Railroads industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Railroads industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Baotou Beifang Chuangye can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Railroads sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Baotou Beifang Chuangye to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Baotou Beifang Chuangye to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Baotou Beifang Chuangye External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Baotou Beifang Chuangye are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Railroads industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Baotou Beifang Chuangye can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye prominent markets.
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.
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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye in the Railroads sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Railroads industry are lowering. It can presents Baotou Beifang Chuangye with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Railroads sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Railroads industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Railroads industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Baotou Beifang Chuangye needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Railroads 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 dependence on third party suppliers
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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. Baotou Beifang Chuangye can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Railroads industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Baotou Beifang Chuangye may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Railroads sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Baotou Beifang Chuangye Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye 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 Baotou Beifang Chuangye needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
