Haoningda Meters A (2356) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Apparel)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Haoningda Meters A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Haoningda Meters A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Haoningda Meters A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Haoningda Meters A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Haoningda Meters A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Haoningda Meters A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Haoningda Meters A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Retail (Apparel) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Haoningda Meters A
Strengths of Haoningda Meters A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Haoningda Meters A are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Haoningda Meters A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Learning organization
- Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Haoningda Meters A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Haoningda Meters A 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 Retail (Apparel) 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Haoningda Meters A is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Training and development
– Haoningda Meters 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.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Apparel) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Haoningda Meters A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Haoningda Meters 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Apparel) industry
– Haoningda Meters 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Apparel) industry
– Haoningda Meters A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Haoningda Meters A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Apparel) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Haoningda Meters A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Haoningda Meters A 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Haoningda Meters A in Retail (Apparel) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Haoningda Meters A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Apparel) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Haoningda Meters A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Haoningda Meters A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Haoningda Meters 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.
Weaknesses of Haoningda Meters A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Haoningda Meters A are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Haoningda Meters A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Apparel) 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Haoningda Meters A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Haoningda Meters A to provide better information regarding Retail (Apparel) 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 Haoningda Meters A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Apparel) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Haoningda Meters A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Haoningda Meters A is planning to shift buying processes online.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Haoningda Meters A has high operating costs in the Retail (Apparel) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Haoningda Meters A lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Haoningda Meters A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Apparel) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Haoningda Meters A is just above the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Haoningda Meters A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Haoningda Meters A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Haoningda Meters A has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Retail (Apparel) industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Apparel) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Haoningda Meters A is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Retail (Apparel) industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Haoningda Meters A, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Apparel) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Haoningda Meters A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Haoningda Meters A is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry in last five years.
Haoningda Meters A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Haoningda Meters A are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Haoningda Meters A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Apparel) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Haoningda Meters A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Haoningda Meters A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Haoningda Meters 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Haoningda Meters 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.
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. Haoningda Meters A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Haoningda Meters 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Haoningda Meters 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 Retail (Apparel) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Haoningda Meters 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Haoningda Meters A in the Retail (Apparel) industry. Now Haoningda Meters A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Haoningda Meters A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Haoningda Meters 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Apparel) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Haoningda Meters A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Haoningda Meters A 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 Haoningda Meters A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Haoningda Meters A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Apparel) industry. This can help Haoningda Meters A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Haoningda Meters A products in the Retail (Apparel) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Haoningda Meters A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Haoningda Meters A are -
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. Haoningda Meters A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Apparel) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A in Retail (Apparel) industry. The Retail (Apparel) 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 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 Haoningda Meters 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 Retail (Apparel) industry and other sectors.
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 Haoningda Meters A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Haoningda Meters A.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A prominent markets.
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 Haoningda Meters A in the Retail (Apparel) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Apparel) industry are lowering. It can presents Haoningda Meters A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Apparel) sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Haoningda Meters 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Increasing wage structure of Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters 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 Haoningda Meters A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.