SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nantong Metalforming Equipment (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nantong Metalforming Equipment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nantong Metalforming Equipment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nantong Metalforming Equipment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nantong Metalforming Equipment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nantong Metalforming Equipment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nantong Metalforming Equipment
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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment
Strengths of Nantong Metalforming Equipment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nantong Metalforming Equipment are -
Learning organization
- Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nantong Metalforming Equipment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Advertising industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nantong Metalforming Equipment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Organizational Resilience of Nantong Metalforming Equipment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nantong Metalforming Equipment does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Advertising industry
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nantong Metalforming Equipment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Advertising industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nantong Metalforming Equipment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nantong Metalforming Equipment in Advertising industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Training and development
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Analytics focus
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Advertising 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Ability to lead change in Advertising
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Advertising industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Nantong Metalforming Equipment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nantong Metalforming Equipment are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Advertising industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nantong Metalforming Equipment products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nantong Metalforming Equipment needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Advertising industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Advertising industry.
High dependence on Nantong Metalforming Equipment ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nantong Metalforming Equipment has some of the most successful models in the Advertising industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nantong Metalforming Equipment should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nantong Metalforming Equipment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nantong Metalforming Equipment to provide better information regarding Advertising products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nantong Metalforming Equipment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Advertising 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Nantong Metalforming Equipment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nantong Metalforming Equipment are -
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. Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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. Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Advertising sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nantong Metalforming Equipment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nantong Metalforming Equipment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Nantong Metalforming Equipment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nantong Metalforming Equipment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Advertising sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Advertising industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nantong Metalforming Equipment in the Advertising industry. Now Nantong Metalforming Equipment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Nantong Metalforming Equipment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nantong Metalforming Equipment are -
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.
Increasing wage structure of Nantong Metalforming Equipment
– 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nantong Metalforming Equipment is facing in Advertising sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Nantong Metalforming Equipment needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Advertising industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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. Nantong Metalforming Equipment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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.
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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nantong Metalforming Equipment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Advertising sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents Nantong Metalforming Equipment with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nantong Metalforming Equipment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment 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 Nantong Metalforming Equipment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
