Jilin Power A (875) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electric Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jilin Power A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jilin Power A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jilin Power A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jilin Power A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jilin Power 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 Jilin Power A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jilin Power A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jilin Power A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jilin Power A
Strengths of Jilin Power A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jilin Power A are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– Jilin Power A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jilin Power A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jilin Power A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Jilin Power A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jilin Power A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Electric Utilities industry
– Jilin Power 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jilin Power A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electric Utilities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jilin Power A in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jilin Power A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jilin Power 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jilin Power A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jilin Power A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jilin Power A 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.
Digital Transformation in Electric Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jilin Power A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jilin Power 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.
Ability to lead change in Electric Utilities
– Jilin Power A is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Electric Utilities industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jilin Power A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Jilin Power A has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.
Learning organization
- Jilin Power A 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 Jilin Power A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jilin Power A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Jilin Power A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jilin Power A are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jilin Power A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electric Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jilin Power A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jilin Power A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jilin Power A, in the dynamic environment of Electric Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jilin Power A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Jilin Power A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jilin Power A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electric Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jilin Power A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jilin Power A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jilin Power A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jilin Power A has some of the most successful models in the Electric Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Jilin Power A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jilin Power A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electric Utilities industry, but Jilin Power A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jilin Power A to focus more on services in the Electric Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jilin Power A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electric Utilities industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jilin Power A is just above the Electric Utilities 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jilin Power A is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Jilin Power A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jilin Power 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.
Skills based hiring in Electric Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jilin Power 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.
Jilin Power A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jilin Power A are -
Manufacturing automation
– Jilin Power A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Electric Utilities 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jilin Power 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 Electric Utilities industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electric Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jilin Power A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jilin Power A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jilin Power A can utilize new technology in the field of Electric Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Jilin Power 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Jilin Power A 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.
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. Jilin Power A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jilin Power A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electric Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jilin Power A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jilin Power A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jilin Power A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help Jilin Power A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jilin Power A products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Jilin Power 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electric Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jilin Power A in the Electric Utilities industry. Now Jilin Power A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Jilin Power A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electric Utilities 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jilin Power A 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 Jilin Power A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Jilin Power A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jilin Power A are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jilin Power A 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 Jilin Power A 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jilin Power A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electric Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jilin Power A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electric Utilities 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jilin Power 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 Electric Utilities 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. Jilin Power A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electric Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Jilin Power A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jilin Power 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.
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 Jilin Power A.
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. Jilin Power A 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jilin Power A in Electric Utilities industry. The Electric Utilities 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jilin Power A is facing in Electric Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jilin Power 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 Electric Utilities industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Jilin Power 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. Jilin Power A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jilin Power A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jilin Power 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 Jilin Power 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 Jilin Power 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 Jilin Power 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 Jilin Power A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.