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 – wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, 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 -
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Qian Jiang Water is one of the most innovative firm in Water Utilities sector.
High brand equity
– Qian Jiang Water has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Qian Jiang Water to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Qian Jiang Water 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Utilities industry
– Qian Jiang Water has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Qian Jiang Water to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Qian Jiang Water to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Qian Jiang Water in Water Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Utilities industry
– Qian Jiang Water is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Qian Jiang Water 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 Water Utilities industry.
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.
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.
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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Qian Jiang Water has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Water Utilities industry over the last five years. Qian Jiang Water 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Qian Jiang Water is one of the leading players in the Water Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Utilities industry in last five years.
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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Qian Jiang Water, in the dynamic environment of Water Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Qian Jiang Water has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Qian Jiang Water, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Utilities 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
– Qian Jiang Water 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.
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 -
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.
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Qian Jiang Water 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. Qian Jiang Water 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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Qian Jiang Water can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Utilities 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.
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.
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.
Loyalty marketing
– Qian Jiang Water 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.
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.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Qian Jiang Water is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Qian Jiang Water can utilize new technology in the field of Water Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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 Qian Jiang Water business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Qian Jiang Water 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 Qian Jiang Water prominent markets.
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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Qian Jiang Water 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 Water Utilities industry regulations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Qian Jiang Water in Water Utilities industry. The Water Utilities 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.
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.