Mz Plastic A (2108) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Mz Plastic A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mz Plastic A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mz Plastic A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mz Plastic A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mz Plastic A operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Mz Plastic A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mz Plastic A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mz Plastic A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mz Plastic A
Strengths of Mz Plastic A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mz Plastic A are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mz Plastic A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mz Plastic A has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mz Plastic A in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Mz Plastic A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mz Plastic A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Mz Plastic A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mz Plastic A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Mz Plastic A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Mz Plastic A is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
High brand equity
– Mz Plastic A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Mz Plastic A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mz Plastic A in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Mz Plastic A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mz Plastic A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mz Plastic A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
– Mz Plastic A is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mz Plastic A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Mz Plastic A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Mz Plastic A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mz Plastic A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mz Plastic A staying ahead in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mz Plastic A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mz Plastic A has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses of Mz Plastic A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mz Plastic A are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Mz Plastic A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but Mz Plastic A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Mz Plastic A to focus more on services in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Mz Plastic A has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mz Plastic A 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 Mz Plastic A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Mz Plastic A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Mz Plastic A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Mz Plastic A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Mz Plastic A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mz Plastic A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Mz Plastic A has some of the most successful models in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Mz Plastic A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mz Plastic A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mz Plastic A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mz Plastic A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Mz Plastic A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Mz Plastic A 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Mz Plastic A is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Mz Plastic A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mz Plastic A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mz Plastic A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Mz Plastic A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mz Plastic A are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mz Plastic A can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
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 Mz Plastic A 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Mz Plastic A can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Mz Plastic A to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Mz Plastic A in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Now Mz Plastic A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Mz Plastic A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mz Plastic A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mz Plastic A can utilize new technology in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Mz Plastic A has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
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. Mz Plastic A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Mz Plastic A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mz Plastic A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mz Plastic A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mz Plastic A can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Mz Plastic A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Mz Plastic A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mz Plastic A are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Mz Plastic A 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mz Plastic A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mz Plastic A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Mz Plastic A 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Mz Plastic A 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. Mz Plastic A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mz Plastic A can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
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. Mz Plastic A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mz Plastic A in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
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 Mz Plastic A in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Mz Plastic A
– 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 Mz Plastic A.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry are lowering. It can presents Mz Plastic A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mz Plastic A is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Mz Plastic A.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mz Plastic A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mz Plastic A needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Mz Plastic A is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Mz Plastic A is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Mz Plastic A to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Mz Plastic A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
