SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Taiya Shoes (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Taiya Shoes is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Taiya Shoes can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Taiya Shoes, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Taiya Shoes
2. Improving business portfolio management of Taiya Shoes
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Taiya Shoes
Strengths of Taiya Shoes | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Taiya Shoes are -
Learning organization
- Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Taiya Shoes emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Taiya Shoes 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Taiya Shoes has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Taiya Shoes staying ahead in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Taiya Shoes digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Taiya Shoes 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Taiya Shoes is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Taiya Shoes 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Taiya Shoes 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Taiya Shoes is one of the most innovative firm in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Taiya Shoes in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Taiya Shoes has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Taiya Shoes to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Taiya Shoes has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Taiya Shoes have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Taiya Shoes
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Taiya Shoes does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Weaknesses of Taiya Shoes | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Taiya Shoes are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Taiya Shoes is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Taiya Shoes to provide better information regarding Fabricated Plastic & Rubber products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Taiya Shoes is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Taiya Shoes 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Taiya Shoes 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, Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Taiya Shoes is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but Taiya Shoes needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Taiya Shoes to focus more on services in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Taiya Shoes needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Taiya Shoes has high operating costs in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Taiya Shoes lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Taiya Shoes, in the dynamic environment of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Taiya Shoes has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Taiya Shoes products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Taiya Shoes needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Taiya Shoes Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Taiya Shoes are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Taiya Shoes has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Taiya Shoes to build a more holistic ecosystem for Taiya Shoes products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Taiya Shoes is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Taiya Shoes can utilize new technology in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Taiya Shoes 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
– Taiya Shoes has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Taiya Shoes to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Taiya Shoes can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Taiya Shoes in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Taiya Shoes to increase its market reach. Taiya Shoes 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Taiya Shoes 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Taiya Shoes can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Taiya Shoes External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Taiya Shoes are -
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 Taiya Shoes business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Taiya Shoes.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Taiya Shoes has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Taiya Shoes needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
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. Taiya Shoes 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Taiya Shoes 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
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. Taiya Shoes needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Taiya Shoes 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Taiya Shoes is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Taiya Shoes can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Taiya Shoes in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Taiya Shoes
– 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 Taiya Shoes.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Taiya Shoes Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes 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 Taiya Shoes needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
