SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Wuhan Sanzhen (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Wuhan Sanzhen is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Wuhan Sanzhen can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wuhan Sanzhen, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Wuhan Sanzhen
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wuhan Sanzhen
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wuhan Sanzhen
Strengths of Wuhan Sanzhen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wuhan Sanzhen are -
Digital Transformation in Waste Management Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Wuhan Sanzhen digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Training and development
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wuhan Sanzhen is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Wuhan Sanzhen has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Wuhan Sanzhen staying ahead in the Waste Management Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Wuhan Sanzhen emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Waste Management Services industry
– Wuhan Sanzhen is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Wuhan Sanzhen is one of the most innovative firm in Waste Management Services sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Wuhan Sanzhen in Waste Management Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Waste Management Services
– Wuhan Sanzhen is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Waste Management Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Wuhan Sanzhen in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Wuhan Sanzhen is present in almost all the verticals within the Waste Management Services industry. This has provided Wuhan Sanzhen a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Waste Management Services industry
– Wuhan Sanzhen has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Wuhan Sanzhen to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Waste Management Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Wuhan Sanzhen to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Wuhan Sanzhen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wuhan Sanzhen are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Wuhan Sanzhen needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Waste Management Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Wuhan Sanzhen can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Wuhan Sanzhen is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Wuhan Sanzhen ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Wuhan Sanzhen still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Waste Management Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Wuhan Sanzhen has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Waste Management Services industry, Wuhan Sanzhen needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ less understanding of Wuhan Sanzhen strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Waste Management Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Waste Management Services 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 Wuhan Sanzhen supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Wuhan Sanzhen is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Wuhan Sanzhen vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Wuhan Sanzhen is just above the Waste Management Services industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Wuhan Sanzhen is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Wuhan Sanzhen to provide better information regarding Waste Management Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Wuhan Sanzhen Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Wuhan Sanzhen are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Wuhan Sanzhen can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Waste Management Services 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Wuhan Sanzhen in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Wuhan Sanzhen can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Waste Management Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Wuhan Sanzhen can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wuhan Sanzhen has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Waste Management Services industry. This can help Wuhan Sanzhen to build a more holistic ecosystem for Wuhan Sanzhen products in the Waste Management Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wuhan Sanzhen to increase its market reach. Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Wuhan Sanzhen in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Waste Management Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Wuhan Sanzhen can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Waste Management Services 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Waste Management Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Wuhan Sanzhen 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. Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Wuhan Sanzhen External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Wuhan Sanzhen 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. Wuhan Sanzhen needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Waste Management Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Wuhan Sanzhen business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Wuhan Sanzhen
– 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 Wuhan Sanzhen.
Environmental challenges
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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. Wuhan Sanzhen can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Waste Management Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Waste Management Services industry are lowering. It can presents Wuhan Sanzhen with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Waste Management Services sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Wuhan Sanzhen needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Waste Management Services industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Wuhan Sanzhen may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Waste Management Services sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Waste Management Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Wuhan Sanzhen 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wuhan Sanzhen in Waste Management Services industry. The Waste Management Services 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wuhan Sanzhen has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wuhan Sanzhen needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wuhan Sanzhen Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen 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 Wuhan Sanzhen needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
