Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank (603323) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank
Strengths of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank are -
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.
Learning organization
- Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Analytics focus
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Regional Banks 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.
Ability to lead change in Regional Banks
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Regional Banks industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Regional Banks industry
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Regional Banks industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Weaknesses of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Regional Banks industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank in the Regional Banks industry. Now Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks 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.
Threats Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
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. Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank prominent markets.
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.
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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank 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 Jiangsu Wujiang Rural Bank needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.