Zhejiang Daily Media (600633) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Computer Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhejiang Daily Media (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhejiang Daily Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Daily Media
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhejiang Daily Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhejiang Daily Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhejiang Daily Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhejiang Daily Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Computer Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhejiang Daily Media
Strengths of Zhejiang Daily Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhejiang Daily Media are -
Organizational Resilience of Zhejiang Daily Media
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhejiang Daily Media does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhejiang Daily Media emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Computer Services
– Zhejiang Daily Media is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zhejiang Daily Media in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Analytics focus
– Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services 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.
Training and development
– Zhejiang Daily Media has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhejiang Daily Media is one of the leading players in the Computer Services 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhejiang Daily Media has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhejiang Daily Media staying ahead in the Computer Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Zhejiang Daily Media in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Zhejiang Daily Media has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Zhejiang Daily Media to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Zhejiang Daily Media in Computer Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Computer Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhejiang Daily Media digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhejiang Daily Media are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Zhejiang Daily Media products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhejiang Daily Media needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Services industry, Zhejiang Daily Media 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 dependence on Zhejiang Daily Media ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhejiang Daily Media still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Computer Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zhejiang Daily Media has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zhejiang Daily Media, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zhejiang Daily Media has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Zhejiang Daily Media has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Computer Services industry over the last five years. Zhejiang Daily Media even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services industry.
Skills based hiring in Computer Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhejiang Daily Media is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Computer Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zhejiang Daily Media has high operating costs in the Computer Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zhejiang Daily Media lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zhejiang Daily Media, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Computer Services 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.
Zhejiang Daily Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhejiang Daily Media are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Zhejiang Daily Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Computer Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Zhejiang Daily Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Zhejiang Daily Media to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Zhejiang Daily Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer Services 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.
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 Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhejiang Daily Media in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Computer Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Zhejiang Daily Media to increase its market reach. Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zhejiang Daily Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Computer Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zhejiang Daily Media 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. Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zhejiang Daily Media has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Computer Services industry. This can help Zhejiang Daily Media to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zhejiang Daily Media products in the Computer Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zhejiang Daily Media 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhejiang Daily Media has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Threats Zhejiang Daily Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhejiang Daily Media are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zhejiang Daily Media may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Computer Services sector.
Increasing wage structure of Zhejiang Daily Media
– 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 Zhejiang Daily Media.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services industry.
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 Zhejiang Daily Media in the Computer Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zhejiang Daily Media in Computer Services industry. The Computer Services 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 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.
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 Zhejiang Daily Media.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Computer Services industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zhejiang Daily Media has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zhejiang Daily Media needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Services 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. Zhejiang Daily Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Services industry are lowering. It can presents Zhejiang Daily Media with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Services sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Daily Media Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media 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 Zhejiang Daily Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.