Qian Jiang Water (600283) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Qian Jiang Water (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Qian Jiang Water is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Qian Jiang Water can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Qian Jiang Water, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Qian Jiang Water
2. Improving business portfolio management of Qian Jiang Water
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Water Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Qian Jiang Water
Strengths of Qian Jiang Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Qian Jiang Water are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Qian Jiang Water is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Utilities industry. This has provided Qian Jiang Water 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 recruit top talent
– Qian Jiang Water is one of the leading players in the Water Utilities industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Qian Jiang Water 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.
Learning organization
- Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Qian Jiang Water emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Qian Jiang Water has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Qian Jiang Water have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Qian Jiang Water has one of the best training and development program in Utilities industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Qian Jiang Water has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Qian Jiang Water 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 Water Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Qian Jiang Water digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Qian Jiang Water 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.
Analytics focus
– Qian Jiang Water 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 Water Utilities 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.
Organizational Resilience of Qian Jiang Water
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Qian Jiang Water does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Qian Jiang Water is one of the most innovative firm in Water Utilities sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Qian Jiang Water has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Qian Jiang Water staying ahead in the Water Utilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Qian Jiang Water | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Qian Jiang Water are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Qian Jiang Water is just above the Water Utilities 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.
Skills based hiring in Water Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Qian Jiang Water 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Qian Jiang Water has some of the most successful models in the Water Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Qian Jiang Water should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Qian Jiang Water needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Qian Jiang Water can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Qian Jiang Water is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Qian Jiang Water is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Utilities industry, but Qian Jiang Water needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Qian Jiang Water to focus more on services in the Water Utilities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Qian Jiang Water 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Qian Jiang Water has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Water Utilities industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Utilities industry, Qian Jiang Water 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Qian Jiang Water needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Qian Jiang Water is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Qian Jiang Water to provide better information regarding Water Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Qian Jiang Water products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Qian Jiang Water needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Qian Jiang Water Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Qian Jiang Water are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Qian Jiang Water can develop new processes and procedures in Water Utilities 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.
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. Qian Jiang Water can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Qian Jiang Water 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Qian Jiang Water can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Qian Jiang Water in the Water Utilities industry. Now Qian Jiang Water can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Qian Jiang Water 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Qian Jiang Water can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Qian Jiang Water operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Utilities sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Qian Jiang Water can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Qian Jiang Water 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Qian Jiang Water to increase its market reach. Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Qian Jiang Water has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Qian Jiang Water to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Qian Jiang Water to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Qian Jiang Water External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Qian Jiang Water are -
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 Qian Jiang Water.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Qian Jiang Water may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Utilities sector.
Increasing wage structure of Qian Jiang Water
– 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 Qian Jiang Water.
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 Qian Jiang Water in the Water Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Qian Jiang Water 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Qian Jiang Water demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Water Utilities industry and other sectors.
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. Qian Jiang Water needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Qian Jiang Water with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Utilities sector.
Environmental challenges
– Qian Jiang Water 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. Qian Jiang Water can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Utilities industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Qian Jiang Water can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Qian Jiang Water has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Qian Jiang Water needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Utilities sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Qian Jiang Water Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
