SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Guangdong Provincial Expressway (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guangdong Provincial Expressway is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guangdong Provincial Expressway
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guangdong Provincial Expressway can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guangdong Provincial Expressway, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guangdong Provincial Expressway
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guangdong Provincial Expressway
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guangdong Provincial Expressway
Strengths of Guangdong Provincial Expressway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guangdong Provincial Expressway are -
Ability to lead change in Misc. Transportation
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Transportation industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guangdong Provincial Expressway in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guangdong Provincial Expressway in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation 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.
Learning organization
- Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Guangdong Provincial Expressway emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Guangdong Provincial Expressway have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guangdong Provincial Expressway staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guangdong Provincial Expressway to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guangdong Provincial Expressway to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Weaknesses of Guangdong Provincial Expressway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guangdong Provincial Expressway are -
Need for greater diversity
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Guangdong Provincial Expressway is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Transportation industry, but Guangdong Provincial Expressway needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Guangdong Provincial Expressway to focus more on services in the Misc. Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Guangdong Provincial Expressway is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Guangdong Provincial Expressway to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry, Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guangdong Provincial Expressway has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Guangdong Provincial Expressway needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Guangdong Provincial Expressway has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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. Transportation industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Guangdong Provincial Expressway ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guangdong Provincial Expressway still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guangdong Provincial Expressway has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guangdong Provincial Expressway is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.
Guangdong Provincial Expressway Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guangdong Provincial Expressway are -
Loyalty marketing
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Guangdong Provincial Expressway has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Guangdong Provincial Expressway to build a more holistic ecosystem for Guangdong Provincial Expressway products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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. Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Guangdong Provincial Expressway can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guangdong Provincial Expressway to increase its market reach. Guangdong Provincial Expressway will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Threats Guangdong Provincial Expressway External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guangdong Provincial Expressway are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guangdong Provincial Expressway needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Environmental challenges
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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. Guangdong Provincial Expressway can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Guangdong Provincial Expressway is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Guangdong Provincial Expressway with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.
Increasing wage structure of Guangdong Provincial Expressway
– 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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. Transportation industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Guangdong Provincial Expressway can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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. Guangdong Provincial Expressway needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guangdong Provincial Expressway Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway 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 Guangdong Provincial Expressway needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.