Tangshan Port (601000) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tangshan Port (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tangshan Port is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tangshan Port

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tangshan Port can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tangshan Port, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tangshan Port 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Tangshan Port can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tangshan Port
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tangshan Port
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 Tangshan Port

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Strengths of Tangshan Port | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Tangshan Port are -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry

– Tangshan Port has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tangshan Port to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tangshan Port to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Digital Transformation in Misc. Transportation industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tangshan Port digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tangshan Port 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.

Organizational Resilience of Tangshan Port

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tangshan Port does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Tangshan Port in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Tangshan Port has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tangshan Port has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Tangshan Port has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tangshan Port 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.

High brand equity

– Tangshan Port has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tangshan Port to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry

– Tangshan Port 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

– Tangshan Port is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Tangshan Port 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Tangshan Port in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Tangshan Port has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tangshan Port to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– Tangshan Port 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

- Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tangshan Port emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

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Weaknesses of Tangshan Port | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Tangshan Port are -

High dependence on Tangshan Port ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Tangshan Port 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of China, Tangshan Port needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Tangshan Port 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Tangshan Port 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Tangshan Port needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tangshan Port can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tangshan Port is planning to shift buying processes online.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Tangshan Port 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tangshan Port, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tangshan Port has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Need for greater diversity

– Tangshan Port 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Tangshan Port 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.

Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tangshan Port 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.

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Tangshan Port Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Tangshan Port are -

Manufacturing automation

– Tangshan Port can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Tangshan Port in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now Tangshan Port can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Tangshan Port 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Tangshan Port has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tangshan Port to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tangshan Port to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Tangshan Port 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, Tangshan Port can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tangshan Port operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.

Buying journey improvements

– Tangshan Port 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Tangshan Port 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Tangshan Port 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.

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. Tangshan Port can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tangshan Port in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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. Tangshan Port 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. Tangshan Port 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.

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Threats Tangshan Port External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Tangshan Port are -

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. Tangshan Port needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Regulatory challenges

– Tangshan Port needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Misc. Transportation industry regulations.

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. Tangshan Port can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Tangshan Port is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Tangshan Port with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.

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.

Increasing wage structure of Tangshan Port

– 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 Tangshan Port.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Tangshan Port 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Tangshan Port 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.

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 Tangshan Port business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tangshan Port in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Tangshan Port has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tangshan Port 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Tangshan Port demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tangshan Port Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port 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 Tangshan Port needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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