SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hangzhou Shunwang Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hangzhou Shunwang Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech
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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech
Strengths of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Organizational Resilience of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Learning organization
- Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hangzhou Shunwang Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Computer Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Computer Services sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Computer Services industry
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech in Computer Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 dependence on Hangzhou Shunwang Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Services industry, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hangzhou Shunwang Tech vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hangzhou Shunwang Tech, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Computer Services industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has some of the most successful models in the Computer Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hangzhou Shunwang Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
Hangzhou Shunwang Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Computer Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
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. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Computer Services industry. This can help Hangzhou Shunwang Tech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hangzhou Shunwang Tech products in the Computer Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hangzhou Shunwang Tech to increase its market reach. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hangzhou Shunwang Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Services sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Computer Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hangzhou Shunwang Tech in the Computer Services industry. Now Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hangzhou Shunwang Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Hangzhou Shunwang Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech are -
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. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Environmental challenges
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Computer Services industry.
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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hangzhou Shunwang Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hangzhou Shunwang Tech is facing in Computer Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hangzhou Shunwang Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech 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 Hangzhou Shunwang Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.