Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B (900908) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B
Strengths of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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
- Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B are -
Buying journey improvements
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
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. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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.
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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
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.
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. Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B 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 Shanghai Chlor-Alkali Chemical B needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.