Gd Advertising A (2400) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Advertising
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Gd Advertising A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Gd Advertising A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Gd Advertising A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Gd Advertising A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Gd Advertising A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Gd Advertising A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Gd Advertising A
Strengths of Gd Advertising A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Gd Advertising A are -
Organizational Resilience of Gd Advertising A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Gd Advertising A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Advertising industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Gd Advertising A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Gd Advertising 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 recruit top talent
– Gd Advertising A is one of the leading players in the Advertising 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Gd Advertising A is present in almost all the verticals within the Advertising industry. This has provided Gd Advertising A 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Advertising industry
– Gd Advertising A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Gd Advertising A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Advertising industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Gd Advertising A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Gd Advertising A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Advertising industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Gd Advertising A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Gd Advertising A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Advertising 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.
Training and development
– Gd Advertising A has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Gd Advertising A in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Gd Advertising A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Gd Advertising A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Gd Advertising A is one of the most innovative firm in Advertising sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Advertising industry
– Gd Advertising 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Gd Advertising A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Gd Advertising A staying ahead in the Advertising industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Gd Advertising A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Gd Advertising A are -
High dependence on Gd Advertising A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Gd Advertising A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Advertising industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Gd Advertising A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Gd Advertising A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Gd Advertising A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Gd Advertising A is just above the Advertising 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Gd Advertising A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Advertising industry over the last five years. Gd Advertising A 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Gd Advertising A has high operating costs in the Advertising industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Gd Advertising A lucrative customers.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Gd Advertising A supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Gd Advertising A is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Gd Advertising A vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Advertising industry, Gd Advertising A 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Gd Advertising A 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
– Gd Advertising A has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Gd Advertising A is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Advertising industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Gd Advertising A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Gd Advertising 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.
Gd Advertising A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Gd Advertising A are -
Buying journey improvements
– Gd Advertising A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising 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.
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 Gd Advertising 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Gd Advertising A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Advertising industry. This can help Gd Advertising A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Gd Advertising A products in the Advertising industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Gd Advertising A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Gd Advertising A can utilize new technology in the field of Advertising industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Gd Advertising 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Advertising industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Gd Advertising A 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. Gd Advertising A 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Gd Advertising A can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Gd Advertising A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Gd Advertising A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Advertising 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 Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Gd Advertising A can develop new processes and procedures in Advertising 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Gd Advertising A to increase its market reach. Gd Advertising A 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Gd Advertising 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 Advertising industry.
Threats Gd Advertising A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Gd Advertising A are -
Environmental challenges
– Gd Advertising 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. Gd Advertising A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
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. Gd Advertising 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents Gd Advertising A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Gd Advertising 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 Advertising industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Advertising industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Gd Advertising A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Gd Advertising A
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Gd Advertising A.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Gd Advertising 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 Advertising 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 Gd Advertising A in Advertising industry. The Advertising 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Gd Advertising A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Advertising industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Gd Advertising A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Advertising 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
– Gd Advertising A 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 Advertising 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 Gd Advertising A in the Advertising sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Gd Advertising A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Gd Advertising 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Gd Advertising A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising 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 Gd Advertising A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
