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 – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, 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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
Learning organization
- Eastern Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eastern Gold Jade emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
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.
Organizational Resilience of Eastern Gold Jade
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eastern Gold Jade does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eastern Gold Jade has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eastern Gold Jade staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Eastern Gold Jade is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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 Gold Jade supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eastern Gold Jade is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eastern Gold Jade vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eastern Gold Jade has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Eastern Gold Jade is just above the Retail (Specialty) industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
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.
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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eastern Gold Jade needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eastern Gold Jade can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eastern Gold Jade is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Eastern Gold Jade 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.
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.
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 -
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 Gold Jade can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eastern Gold Jade operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eastern Gold Jade 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eastern Gold Jade 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 Gold Jade to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eastern Gold Jade can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Specialty) 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eastern Gold Jade has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eastern Gold Jade to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eastern Gold Jade to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Gold Jade can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
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.
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 -
Environmental challenges
– Eastern Gold Jade needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Eastern Gold Jade can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry.
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.
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.
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.
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 Gold Jade needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eastern Gold Jade may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Specialty) sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.