Maiya A (971) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maiya A (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maiya A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maiya A

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maiya A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maiya A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maiya 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Maiya A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maiya A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maiya A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maiya A

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Strengths of Maiya A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Maiya A are -

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry

– Maiya A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maiya A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maiya A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Maiya A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Maiya A staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Learning organization

- Maiya A 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 Maiya A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maiya A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Apparel/Accessories

– Maiya A is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Apparel/Accessories industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maiya A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Maiya A in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Organizational Resilience of Maiya A

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maiya A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Maiya A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Maiya 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Maiya A is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Maiya 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.

Analytics focus

– Maiya A is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The technology infrastructure of China is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Maiya A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry

– Maiya A 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 Maiya 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.

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Weaknesses of Maiya A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Maiya A are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Maiya A, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Maiya A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Apparel/Accessories industry, Maiya 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maiya A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry over the last five years. Maiya A even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Maiya A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Apparel/Accessories industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.

Need for greater diversity

– Maiya 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Maiya A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Maiya A 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.

High dependence on Maiya A ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Maiya A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Apparel/Accessories industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Maiya A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Maiya A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, but Maiya A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Maiya A to focus more on services in the Apparel/Accessories industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Maiya A is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Maiya A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Maiya A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Maiya A is planning to shift buying processes online.

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Maiya A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Maiya A are -

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Maiya 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 Maiya 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maiya A to increase its market reach. Maiya A 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Maiya 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. Maiya 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maiya 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 Maiya A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maiya A in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now Maiya A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Maiya 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 Apparel/Accessories industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Buying journey improvements

– Maiya A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Maiya 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maiya A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maiya A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Maiya A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Apparel/Accessories sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maiya A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maiya A to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Manufacturing automation

– Maiya A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Apparel/Accessories 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

– Maiya A 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maiya A can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

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Threats Maiya A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Maiya A are -

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Maiya A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maiya A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.

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 Maiya A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Maiya A is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maiya A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maiya A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Maiya A 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.

New competition

– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Maiya A in the Apparel/Accessories sector and impact the bottomline 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 Maiya A in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.

Increasing wage structure of Maiya A

– 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 Maiya A.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Maiya 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Maiya 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Maiya 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 Maiya A prominent markets.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maiya A Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maiya 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 Maiya 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 Maiya 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 Maiya 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 Maiya A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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