SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dalian Sunasia Tourism (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dalian Sunasia Tourism is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dalian Sunasia Tourism can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dalian Sunasia Tourism, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
Strengths of Dalian Sunasia Tourism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dalian Sunasia Tourism are -
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Activities industry
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Recreational Activities
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Activities industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dalian Sunasia Tourism in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dalian Sunasia Tourism emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dalian Sunasia Tourism to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Dalian Sunasia Tourism does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dalian Sunasia Tourism in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dalian Sunasia Tourism has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dalian Sunasia Tourism to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dalian Sunasia Tourism staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Recreational Activities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dalian Sunasia Tourism have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism is one of the most innovative firm in Recreational Activities sector.
Weaknesses of Dalian Sunasia Tourism | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dalian Sunasia Tourism are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Dalian Sunasia Tourism products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Activities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dalian Sunasia Tourism can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dalian Sunasia Tourism is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dalian Sunasia Tourism has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Activities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dalian Sunasia Tourism should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dalian Sunasia Tourism has high operating costs in the Recreational Activities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dalian Sunasia Tourism lucrative customers.
High dependence on Dalian Sunasia Tourism ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dalian Sunasia Tourism still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Activities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Dalian Sunasia Tourism has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dalian Sunasia Tourism is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dalian Sunasia Tourism, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Activities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry, Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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, Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Dalian Sunasia Tourism Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dalian Sunasia Tourism are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Activities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Activities 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dalian Sunasia Tourism to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dalian Sunasia Tourism can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dalian Sunasia Tourism to increase its market reach. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Activities 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Activities 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Activities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dalian Sunasia Tourism in the Recreational Activities industry. Now Dalian Sunasia Tourism can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Dalian Sunasia Tourism External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dalian Sunasia Tourism are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dalian Sunasia Tourism is facing in Recreational Activities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Activities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Activities 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Activities industry are lowering. It can presents Dalian Sunasia Tourism with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Activities sector.
Increasing wage structure of Dalian Sunasia Tourism
– 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
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, Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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. Dalian Sunasia Tourism can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.
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.
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. Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dalian Sunasia Tourism Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
