Eastern Investment A (673) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Motion Pictures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eastern Investment A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eastern Investment A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eastern Investment A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eastern Investment A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eastern Investment A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eastern Investment A operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Eastern Investment A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eastern Investment A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eastern Investment A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Motion Pictures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eastern Investment A
Strengths of Eastern Investment A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eastern Investment A are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eastern Investment A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Motion Pictures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eastern Investment A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eastern Investment A is present in almost all the verticals within the Motion Pictures industry. This has provided Eastern Investment A 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.
Ability to lead change in Motion Pictures
– Eastern Investment A is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Motion Pictures industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eastern Investment A 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
– Eastern Investment A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eastern Investment A has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Eastern Investment A has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eastern Investment A is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures 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.
Organizational Resilience of Eastern Investment A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eastern Investment A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eastern Investment A 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.
High brand equity
– Eastern Investment A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eastern Investment A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Eastern Investment A in Motion Pictures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eastern Investment A in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Eastern Investment A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eastern Investment A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eastern Investment A has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Weaknesses of Eastern Investment A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eastern Investment A are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eastern Investment A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Motion Pictures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eastern Investment A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eastern Investment A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Eastern Investment A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Motion Pictures industry, but Eastern Investment A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Eastern Investment A to focus more on services in the Motion Pictures industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eastern Investment A is one of the leading players in the Motion Pictures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Motion Pictures industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Eastern Investment A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eastern Investment A has high operating costs in the Motion Pictures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eastern Investment A lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Motion Pictures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eastern Investment A 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Eastern Investment A 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.
High dependence on Eastern Investment A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eastern Investment A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Motion Pictures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eastern Investment A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Eastern Investment A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eastern Investment A 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 Motion Pictures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Eastern Investment A is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Motion Pictures industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Motion Pictures industry, Eastern Investment A 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.
Eastern Investment A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eastern Investment A are -
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 Eastern Investment A to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eastern Investment A can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Motion Pictures industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Eastern Investment A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Motion Pictures 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Eastern Investment A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Motion Pictures 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Motion Pictures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eastern Investment A 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. Eastern Investment A 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
– Eastern Investment A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Motion Pictures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eastern Investment A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eastern Investment A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eastern Investment A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Motion Pictures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Motion Pictures industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eastern Investment A in the Motion Pictures industry. Now Eastern Investment A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Eastern Investment A has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Eastern Investment A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Eastern Investment A 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 Eastern Investment A 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 Eastern Investment A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eastern Investment A can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Eastern Investment A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Eastern Investment A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eastern Investment A are -
Environmental challenges
– Eastern Investment A 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. Eastern Investment A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Motion Pictures industry.
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 Eastern Investment A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Eastern Investment A.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eastern Investment A in Motion Pictures industry. The Motion Pictures 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Eastern Investment A 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 Motion Pictures industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eastern Investment A can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Motion Pictures industry.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Motion Pictures industry are lowering. It can presents Eastern Investment A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Motion Pictures sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eastern Investment A is facing in Motion Pictures 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. Eastern Investment A will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eastern Investment A high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eastern Investment A can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Eastern Investment A prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eastern Investment A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eastern Investment A needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Eastern Investment A is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Eastern Investment A is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Eastern Investment A to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Eastern Investment A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.