SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fujian Aonong Biological (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fujian Aonong Biological is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fujian Aonong Biological
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fujian Aonong Biological can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fujian Aonong Biological, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fujian Aonong Biological
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fujian Aonong Biological
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fujian Aonong Biological
Strengths of Fujian Aonong Biological | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fujian Aonong Biological are -
High brand equity
– Fujian Aonong Biological has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fujian Aonong Biological to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fujian Aonong Biological has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fujian Aonong Biological staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Fujian Aonong Biological is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fujian Aonong Biological has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fujian Aonong Biological have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fujian Aonong Biological emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Fujian Aonong Biological in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Fujian Aonong Biological has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Fujian Aonong Biological to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fujian Aonong Biological has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fujian Aonong Biological digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fujian Aonong Biological is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fujian Aonong Biological in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fujian Aonong Biological is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Weaknesses of Fujian Aonong Biological | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fujian Aonong Biological are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fujian Aonong Biological is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Fujian Aonong Biological to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fujian Aonong Biological is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fujian Aonong Biological has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Fujian Aonong Biological products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Fujian Aonong Biological needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Fujian Aonong Biological, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Fujian Aonong Biological has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fujian Aonong Biological has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fujian Aonong Biological lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Fujian Aonong Biological, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fujian Aonong Biological has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Fujian Aonong Biological Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fujian Aonong Biological are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Fujian Aonong Biological in the Food Processing industry. Now Fujian Aonong Biological can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fujian Aonong Biological is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fujian Aonong Biological can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Food Processing industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Fujian Aonong Biological can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fujian Aonong Biological to increase its market reach. Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fujian Aonong Biological can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fujian Aonong Biological operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Fujian Aonong Biological in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fujian Aonong Biological has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fujian Aonong Biological to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fujian Aonong Biological to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Fujian Aonong Biological can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fujian Aonong Biological can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Threats Fujian Aonong Biological External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fujian Aonong Biological are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Fujian Aonong Biological with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Food Processing industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fujian Aonong Biological in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
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. Fujian Aonong Biological 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, Fujian Aonong Biological may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fujian Aonong Biological is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Fujian Aonong Biological.
Regulatory challenges
– Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
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 Fujian Aonong Biological in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fujian Aonong Biological 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fujian Aonong Biological Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological 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 Fujian Aonong Biological needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
