SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment
2. Improving business portfolio management of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment
Strengths of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment are -
Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Analytics focus
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 Apparel/Accessories 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.
Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Organizational Resilience of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Need for greater diversity
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
High dependence on BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Apparel/Accessories industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is just above the Apparel/Accessories 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to provide better information regarding Apparel/Accessories products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment is planning to shift buying processes online.
BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can develop new processes and procedures in Apparel/Accessories 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.
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. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Apparel/Accessories sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Loyalty marketing
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Regulatory challenges
– BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.
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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment in the Apparel/Accessories sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment prominent markets.
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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Apparel/Accessories industry are lowering. It can presents BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Apparel/Accessories sector.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories 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. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment 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 BIEM.L .FDLKK Garment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
