Eastern Pioneer Driving School (603377) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Schools
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eastern Pioneer Driving School (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eastern Pioneer Driving School is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eastern Pioneer Driving School can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eastern Pioneer Driving School, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
Strengths of Eastern Pioneer Driving School | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eastern Pioneer Driving School are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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
- Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eastern Pioneer Driving School emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Schools industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eastern Pioneer Driving School digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Analytics focus
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Schools 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Schools industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eastern Pioneer Driving School have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Schools industry
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School is one of the most innovative firm in Schools sector.
Ability to lead change in Schools
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School is one of the leading players in the Schools industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Schools industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eastern Pioneer Driving School in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eastern Pioneer Driving School does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eastern Pioneer Driving School comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eastern Pioneer Driving School in Schools industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Eastern Pioneer Driving School | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eastern Pioneer Driving School are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Schools industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eastern Pioneer Driving School is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eastern Pioneer Driving School vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eastern Pioneer Driving School, in the dynamic environment of Schools industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eastern Pioneer Driving School has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eastern Pioneer Driving School has some of the most successful models in the Schools industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eastern Pioneer Driving School should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eastern Pioneer Driving School is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Schools industry, but Eastern Pioneer Driving School needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eastern Pioneer Driving School to focus more on services in the Schools industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eastern Pioneer Driving School is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eastern Pioneer Driving School to provide better information regarding Schools products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Schools industry, Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eastern Pioneer Driving School needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Schools industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eastern Pioneer Driving School can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eastern Pioneer Driving School is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Eastern Pioneer Driving School, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Schools 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eastern Pioneer Driving School still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Schools industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eastern Pioneer Driving School has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Eastern Pioneer Driving School Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eastern Pioneer Driving School are -
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. Eastern Pioneer Driving School can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Schools 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eastern Pioneer Driving School to increase its market reach. Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eastern Pioneer Driving School has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Schools industry. This can help Eastern Pioneer Driving School to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eastern Pioneer Driving School products in the Schools industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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, Eastern Pioneer Driving School can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eastern Pioneer Driving School operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Schools sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eastern Pioneer Driving School to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eastern Pioneer Driving School to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eastern Pioneer Driving School in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Schools industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Schools 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.
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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
Threats Eastern Pioneer Driving School External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eastern Pioneer Driving School are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Schools industry and other sectors.
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. Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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.
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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eastern Pioneer Driving School may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Schools sector.
Increasing wage structure of Eastern Pioneer Driving School
– 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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, Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School prominent markets.
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. Eastern Pioneer Driving School needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Schools industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Schools industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eastern Pioneer Driving School can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eastern Pioneer Driving School in Schools industry. The Schools 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eastern Pioneer Driving School has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eastern Pioneer Driving School needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eastern Pioneer Driving School Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School 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 Eastern Pioneer Driving School needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.