Sz Shenbao A (19) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sz Shenbao A (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sz Shenbao A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sz Shenbao A

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sz Shenbao A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sz Shenbao A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sz Shenbao A 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 Sz Shenbao A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sz Shenbao A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sz Shenbao A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sz Shenbao A

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Strengths of Sz Shenbao A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Sz Shenbao A are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Sz Shenbao A in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Sz Shenbao A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Sz Shenbao A 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Sz Shenbao A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sz Shenbao A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Sz Shenbao A in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Sz Shenbao A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sz Shenbao A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Sz Shenbao A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sz Shenbao A 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Sz Shenbao A is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Sz Shenbao A 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.

High brand equity

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

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Sz Shenbao A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sz Shenbao A staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Analytics focus

– Sz Shenbao A 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 Food Processing 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.

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

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

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Weaknesses of Sz Shenbao A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Sz Shenbao A are -

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Sz Shenbao A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Sz Shenbao A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sz Shenbao A to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Sz Shenbao A has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sz Shenbao A lucrative customers.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Need for greater diversity

– Sz Shenbao A 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Sz Shenbao A 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sz Shenbao A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Sz Shenbao A 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Sz Shenbao A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing 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 Sz Shenbao A, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sz Shenbao A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Sz Shenbao A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sz Shenbao A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sz Shenbao A to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

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Sz Shenbao A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Sz Shenbao A are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Sz Shenbao A 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

– Sz Shenbao A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sz Shenbao A 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. Sz Shenbao A 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Sz Shenbao A can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Sz Shenbao A 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sz Shenbao A 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 Sz Shenbao A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Sz Shenbao A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Sz Shenbao A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sz Shenbao A products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sz Shenbao A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sz Shenbao A 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sz Shenbao A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sz Shenbao A can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing 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 Sz Shenbao A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry

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

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Threats Sz Shenbao A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Sz Shenbao A are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Sz Shenbao A 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 Food Processing industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Sz Shenbao A is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Sz Shenbao A.

Regulatory challenges

– Sz Shenbao A 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 Food Processing industry regulations.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Sz Shenbao A in the Food Processing 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 Sz Shenbao A in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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 Sz Shenbao A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Sz Shenbao A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sz Shenbao A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sz Shenbao A 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 Sz Shenbao A 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sz Shenbao A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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. Sz Shenbao A 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sz Shenbao A Template, Example

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

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