SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Heilongjiang Agriculture (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Heilongjiang Agriculture is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Heilongjiang Agriculture
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Heilongjiang Agriculture can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Heilongjiang Agriculture, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Heilongjiang Agriculture
2. Improving business portfolio management of Heilongjiang Agriculture
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Crops sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Heilongjiang Agriculture
Strengths of Heilongjiang Agriculture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Heilongjiang Agriculture are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Heilongjiang Agriculture has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Heilongjiang Agriculture staying ahead in the Crops industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Heilongjiang Agriculture
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Heilongjiang Agriculture does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Heilongjiang Agriculture is present in almost all the verticals within the Crops industry. This has provided Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
Analytics focus
– Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops 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.
High brand equity
– Heilongjiang Agriculture has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Heilongjiang Agriculture to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Heilongjiang Agriculture 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
– Heilongjiang Agriculture has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Heilongjiang Agriculture in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Heilongjiang Agriculture has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Heilongjiang Agriculture to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Heilongjiang Agriculture in Crops industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Heilongjiang Agriculture is one of the most innovative firm in Crops sector.
Digital Transformation in Crops industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Heilongjiang Agriculture digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
Weaknesses of Heilongjiang Agriculture | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Heilongjiang Agriculture are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Heilongjiang Agriculture has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Crops industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Crops industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops industry.
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 Heilongjiang Agriculture supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Heilongjiang Agriculture is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Heilongjiang Agriculture vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Heilongjiang Agriculture has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Crops industry over the last five years. Heilongjiang Agriculture even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Heilongjiang Agriculture, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Crops industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Heilongjiang Agriculture is one of the leading players in the Crops industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Crops industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Heilongjiang Agriculture needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Crops industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Heilongjiang Agriculture can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Heilongjiang Agriculture is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Heilongjiang Agriculture, in the dynamic environment of Crops industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Heilongjiang Agriculture has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Heilongjiang Agriculture has high operating costs in the Crops industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Heilongjiang Agriculture lucrative customers.
High dependence on Heilongjiang Agriculture ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Heilongjiang Agriculture still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Crops industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Heilongjiang Agriculture has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Heilongjiang Agriculture Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Heilongjiang Agriculture are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Heilongjiang Agriculture in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Crops industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Heilongjiang Agriculture is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Heilongjiang Agriculture can utilize new technology in the field of Crops industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Heilongjiang Agriculture has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Crops industry. This can help Heilongjiang Agriculture to build a more holistic ecosystem for Heilongjiang Agriculture products in the Crops industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Heilongjiang Agriculture can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Crops 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
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 Heilongjiang Agriculture 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, Heilongjiang Agriculture can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Heilongjiang Agriculture operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Crops sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Heilongjiang Agriculture can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Crops 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Heilongjiang Agriculture to increase its market reach. Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
Threats Heilongjiang Agriculture External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Heilongjiang Agriculture are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Heilongjiang Agriculture 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
– Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops 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. Heilongjiang Agriculture 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.
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.
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 Heilongjiang Agriculture business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Heilongjiang Agriculture has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Crops industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Heilongjiang Agriculture needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Crops 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. Heilongjiang Agriculture needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Crops industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Heilongjiang Agriculture is facing in Crops sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Heilongjiang Agriculture in Crops industry. The Crops 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Crops industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Heilongjiang Agriculture Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture 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 Heilongjiang Agriculture needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.