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 – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing, 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 -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities 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 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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dalian Sunasia Tourism comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Activities 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Activities industry
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dalian Sunasia Tourism to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Activities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dalian Sunasia Tourism to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dalian Sunasia Tourism in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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 -
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.
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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Dalian Sunasia Tourism is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Activities industry, but Dalian Sunasia Tourism needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Dalian Sunasia Tourism to focus more on services in the Recreational Activities industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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.
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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dalian Sunasia Tourism is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dalian Sunasia Tourism to provide better information regarding Recreational Activities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Dalian Sunasia Tourism is just above the Recreational Activities 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 Recreational Activities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
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.
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.
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 -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
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.
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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dalian Sunasia Tourism can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dalian Sunasia Tourism operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Activities sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dalian Sunasia Tourism can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dalian Sunasia Tourism has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Activities industry. This can help Dalian Sunasia Tourism to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dalian Sunasia Tourism products in the Recreational Activities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dalian Sunasia Tourism is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dalian Sunasia Tourism can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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.
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.
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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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.
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 -
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism.
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 Dalian Sunasia Tourism in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dalian Sunasia Tourism may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Activities sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dalian Sunasia Tourism in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Dalian Sunasia Tourism 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.
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.
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.
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.
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.