SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Guizhou Transportation Planning (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guizhou Transportation Planning is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guizhou Transportation Planning
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guizhou Transportation Planning can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guizhou Transportation Planning, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guizhou Transportation Planning
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guizhou Transportation Planning
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guizhou Transportation Planning
Strengths of Guizhou Transportation Planning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guizhou Transportation Planning are -
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Guizhou Transportation Planning is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guizhou Transportation Planning in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Guizhou Transportation Planning has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Guizhou Transportation Planning to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Guizhou Transportation Planning in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Guizhou Transportation Planning has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Guizhou Transportation Planning to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guizhou Transportation Planning has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Guizhou Transportation Planning is one of the leading players in the Construction Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Guizhou Transportation Planning is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Guizhou Transportation Planning has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guizhou Transportation Planning to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guizhou Transportation Planning to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guizhou Transportation Planning has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guizhou Transportation Planning staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Organizational Resilience of Guizhou Transportation Planning
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Guizhou Transportation Planning does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Guizhou Transportation Planning comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.
Training and development
– Guizhou Transportation Planning has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guizhou Transportation Planning are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guizhou Transportation Planning has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guizhou Transportation Planning is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Guizhou Transportation Planning needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Guizhou Transportation Planning can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Guizhou Transportation Planning is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Construction Services industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Guizhou Transportation Planning needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Guizhou Transportation Planning has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Guizhou Transportation Planning should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guizhou Transportation Planning products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guizhou Transportation Planning needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Guizhou Transportation Planning, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guizhou Transportation Planning has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.
Guizhou Transportation Planning Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guizhou Transportation Planning are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
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. Guizhou Transportation Planning can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guizhou Transportation Planning to increase its market reach. Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Guizhou Transportation Planning can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Construction Services industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guizhou Transportation Planning in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Guizhou Transportation Planning can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guizhou Transportation Planning are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Guizhou Transportation Planning can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Guizhou Transportation Planning in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Guizhou Transportation Planning.
Increasing wage structure of Guizhou Transportation Planning
– 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning.
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 Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Guizhou Transportation Planning with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Guizhou Transportation Planning in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Construction Services industry.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning prominent markets.
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. Guizhou Transportation Planning needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Guizhou Transportation Planning business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guizhou Transportation Planning Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning 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 Guizhou Transportation Planning needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.