Qingdao Liqun Department (601366) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Department & Discount)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Qingdao Liqun Department (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Qingdao Liqun Department is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Qingdao Liqun Department
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Qingdao Liqun Department can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Qingdao Liqun Department, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Qingdao Liqun Department
2. Improving business portfolio management of Qingdao Liqun Department
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Retail (Department & Discount) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Qingdao Liqun Department
Strengths of Qingdao Liqun Department | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Qingdao Liqun Department are -
Innovation driven organization
– Qingdao Liqun Department is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Department & Discount) sector.
High brand equity
– Qingdao Liqun Department has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Qingdao Liqun Department to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Qingdao Liqun Department emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Qingdao Liqun Department has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Department & Discount) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Qingdao Liqun Department have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Qingdao Liqun Department in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Qingdao Liqun Department has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Qingdao Liqun Department to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Department & Discount)
– Qingdao Liqun Department is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Qingdao Liqun Department in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Qingdao Liqun Department is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This has provided Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Qingdao Liqun Department digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– Qingdao Liqun Department has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Qingdao Liqun Department to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Qingdao Liqun Department to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Qingdao Liqun Department is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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 Qingdao Liqun Department | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Qingdao Liqun Department are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Qingdao Liqun Department has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Qingdao Liqun Department should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, Qingdao Liqun Department 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, Qingdao Liqun Department is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Qingdao Liqun Department to provide better information regarding Retail (Department & Discount) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Qingdao Liqun Department products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Qingdao Liqun Department needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
High dependence on Qingdao Liqun Department ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Qingdao Liqun Department still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Department & Discount) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Qingdao Liqun Department has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Qingdao Liqun Department has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Qingdao Liqun Department 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Qingdao Liqun Department is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Qingdao Liqun Department has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry over the last five years. Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Qingdao Liqun Department Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Qingdao Liqun Department are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Qingdao Liqun Department can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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, Qingdao Liqun Department is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Qingdao Liqun Department can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Department & Discount) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Qingdao Liqun Department can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Qingdao Liqun Department operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Department & Discount) sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Qingdao Liqun Department has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This can help Qingdao Liqun Department to build a more holistic ecosystem for Qingdao Liqun Department products in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Qingdao Liqun Department can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Department & Discount) sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Qingdao Liqun Department to increase its market reach. Qingdao Liqun Department will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Qingdao Liqun Department 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. Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Qingdao Liqun Department in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Qingdao Liqun Department External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Qingdao Liqun Department are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Department & Discount) industry are lowering. It can presents Qingdao Liqun Department with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Department & Discount) sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department prominent markets.
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.
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 Qingdao Liqun Department business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Qingdao Liqun Department is facing in Retail (Department & Discount) 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 Qingdao Liqun Department.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Qingdao Liqun Department 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 (Department & Discount) industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Qingdao Liqun Department in Retail (Department & Discount) industry. The Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
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. Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Qingdao Liqun Department 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 (Department & Discount) sector.
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. Qingdao Liqun Department needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Qingdao Liqun Department needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Qingdao Liqun Department 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Qingdao Liqun Department Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department 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 Qingdao Liqun Department needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
