SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eastern Gold Jade (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eastern Gold Jade is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eastern Gold Jade
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eastern Gold Jade can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eastern Gold Jade, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eastern Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eastern Gold Jade
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eastern Gold Jade
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eastern Gold Jade
Strengths of Eastern Gold Jade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eastern Gold Jade are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eastern Gold Jade is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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
– Eastern Gold Jade is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Specialty) industry. This has provided Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eastern Gold Jade in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eastern Gold Jade comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eastern Gold Jade 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
– Eastern Gold Jade has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eastern Gold Jade have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)
– Eastern Gold Jade is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eastern Gold Jade in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Specialty) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Eastern Gold Jade digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Specialty) industry
– Eastern Gold Jade has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eastern Gold Jade to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eastern Gold Jade to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Eastern Gold Jade has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eastern Gold Jade in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Eastern Gold Jade has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eastern Gold Jade to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Eastern Gold Jade | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eastern Gold Jade are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eastern Gold Jade is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Eastern Gold Jade needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eastern Gold Jade has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eastern Gold Jade 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, Eastern Gold Jade has high operating costs in the Retail (Specialty) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eastern Gold Jade lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Eastern Gold Jade, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Specialty) 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Eastern Gold Jade strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Eastern Gold Jade needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Specialty) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eastern Gold Jade is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eastern Gold Jade to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Eastern Gold Jade Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eastern Gold Jade are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eastern Gold Jade can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eastern Gold Jade to increase its market reach. Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Specialty) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Eastern Gold Jade can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eastern Gold Jade 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 Eastern Gold Jade to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Specialty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eastern Gold Jade 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. Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eastern Gold Jade is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eastern Gold Jade can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eastern Gold Jade in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Eastern Gold Jade can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Eastern Gold Jade can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eastern Gold Jade in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eastern Gold Jade has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Eastern Gold Jade to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eastern Gold Jade products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Eastern Gold Jade External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eastern Gold Jade are -
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 Eastern Gold Jade in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Gold Jade.
Regulatory challenges
– Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Eastern Gold Jade
– 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 Gold Jade.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eastern Gold Jade has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eastern Gold Jade needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eastern Gold Jade is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eastern Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) 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 Gold Jade 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 Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Eastern Gold Jade with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eastern Gold Jade in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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 Eastern Gold Jade business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eastern Gold Jade Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eastern Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
