SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shanghai Maling Aquarius (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shanghai Maling Aquarius is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shanghai Maling Aquarius can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shanghai Maling Aquarius, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
Strengths of Shanghai Maling Aquarius | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shanghai Maling Aquarius are -
Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Shanghai Maling Aquarius in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Fish/Livestock industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shanghai Maling Aquarius digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Organizational Resilience of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shanghai Maling Aquarius does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Learning organization
- Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shanghai Maling Aquarius emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shanghai Maling Aquarius comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shanghai Maling Aquarius staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shanghai Maling Aquarius in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Shanghai Maling Aquarius | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shanghai Maling Aquarius are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shanghai Maling Aquarius has high operating costs in the Fish/Livestock industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shanghai Maling Aquarius lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shanghai Maling Aquarius is just above the Fish/Livestock 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shanghai Maling Aquarius, in the dynamic environment of Fish/Livestock industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shanghai Maling Aquarius has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shanghai Maling Aquarius has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shanghai Maling Aquarius should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shanghai Maling Aquarius has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Shanghai Maling Aquarius even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shanghai Maling Aquarius is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Shanghai Maling Aquarius needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shanghai Maling Aquarius to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Shanghai Maling Aquarius strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Fish/Livestock industry, Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shanghai Maling Aquarius is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shanghai Maling Aquarius to provide better information regarding Fish/Livestock products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Shanghai Maling Aquarius Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shanghai Maling Aquarius are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fish/Livestock industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shanghai Maling Aquarius to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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. Shanghai Maling Aquarius can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shanghai Maling Aquarius has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fish/Livestock industry. This can help Shanghai Maling Aquarius to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shanghai Maling Aquarius products in the Fish/Livestock industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shanghai Maling Aquarius is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shanghai Maling Aquarius can utilize new technology in the field of Fish/Livestock industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock 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 Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shanghai Maling Aquarius can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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.
Threats Shanghai Maling Aquarius External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shanghai Maling Aquarius are -
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 Shanghai Maling Aquarius business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shanghai Maling Aquarius can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Shanghai Maling Aquarius prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
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 Maling Aquarius needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fish/Livestock industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Shanghai Maling Aquarius with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shanghai Maling Aquarius is facing in Fish/Livestock sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shanghai Maling Aquarius needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Increasing wage structure of Shanghai Maling Aquarius
– 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 Shanghai Maling Aquarius.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Maling Aquarius Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shanghai Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius 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 Maling Aquarius needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.