SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guangxi Nanning Waterworks, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Water Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks
Strengths of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks are -
Training and development
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has one of the best training and development program in Utilities industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guangxi Nanning Waterworks staying ahead in the Water Utilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is one of the leading players in the Water Utilities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks in Water Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Guangxi Nanning Waterworks emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Utilities industry
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Utilities industry
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Water Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Guangxi Nanning Waterworks digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
High brand equity
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Water Utilities
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is one of the leading players in the Water Utilities industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Utilities industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guangxi Nanning Waterworks in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Water Utilities industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Guangxi Nanning Waterworks ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Water Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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
Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Utilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Water Utilities industry.
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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Guangxi Nanning Waterworks vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is one of the leading players in the Water Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Utilities industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to provide better information regarding Water Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Guangxi Nanning Waterworks, in the dynamic environment of Water Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Guangxi Nanning Waterworks Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to increase its market reach. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Utilities industry. This can help Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to build a more holistic ecosystem for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks products in the Water Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks in the Water Utilities industry. Now Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can utilize new technology in the field of Water Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Utilities sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guangxi Nanning Waterworks in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Guangxi Nanning Waterworks External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks are -
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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Water Utilities industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Guangxi Nanning Waterworks is facing in Water Utilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Utilities sector.
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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks
– 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Water Utilities industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guangxi Nanning Waterworks has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guangxi Nanning Waterworks needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Utilities sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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. Guangxi Nanning Waterworks needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guangxi Nanning Waterworks Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks 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 Guangxi Nanning Waterworks needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
