Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo (300065) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Communications Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo
Strengths of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.
High brand equity
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Learning organization
- Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo are -
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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to provide better information regarding Communications Equipment products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Equipment industry, but Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to focus more on services in the Communications Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Communications Equipment industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to increase its market reach. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.
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. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo products in the Communications Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.
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. Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo is facing in Communications Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Communications Equipment 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Communications Equipment industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo
– 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.
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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo 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 Beijing Highlander Digital Technolo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
