Zhongchao Cable A (2471) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhongchao Cable A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhongchao Cable A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhongchao Cable A
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhongchao Cable A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhongchao Cable A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhongchao Cable A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhongchao Cable A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhongchao Cable A
Strengths of Zhongchao Cable A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhongchao Cable A are -
Learning organization
- Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhongchao Cable A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Zhongchao Cable A is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Organizational Resilience of Zhongchao Cable A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhongchao Cable A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhongchao Cable A 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.
High brand equity
– Zhongchao Cable A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Zhongchao Cable A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Zhongchao Cable A 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Training and development
– Zhongchao Cable A has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Zhongchao Cable A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zhongchao Cable A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zhongchao Cable A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhongchao Cable A is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhongchao Cable A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhongchao Cable A has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Zhongchao Cable A is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zhongchao Cable A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zhongchao Cable A is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Weaknesses of Zhongchao Cable A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhongchao Cable A are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zhongchao Cable A 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zhongchao Cable A is just above the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Zhongchao Cable A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Zhongchao Cable A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Zhongchao Cable A to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Zhongchao Cable A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Zhongchao Cable A 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Zhongchao Cable A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Zhongchao Cable A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on Zhongchao Cable A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhongchao Cable A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Zhongchao Cable A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zhongchao Cable A has high operating costs in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zhongchao Cable A lucrative customers.
Zhongchao Cable A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhongchao Cable A are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhongchao Cable A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zhongchao Cable A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zhongchao Cable A in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Zhongchao Cable A can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Zhongchao Cable A 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. Zhongchao Cable A 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.
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 Zhongchao Cable A 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.
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. Zhongchao Cable A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zhongchao Cable A can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zhongchao Cable A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zhongchao Cable A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Threats Zhongchao Cable A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhongchao Cable A are -
Environmental challenges
– Zhongchao Cable A 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. Zhongchao Cable A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zhongchao Cable A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zhongchao Cable A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhongchao Cable A 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Increasing wage structure of Zhongchao Cable A
– 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 Zhongchao Cable A.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Zhongchao Cable A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Zhongchao Cable A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Zhongchao Cable A.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A prominent markets.
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 Zhongchao Cable A in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zhongchao Cable A is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zhongchao Cable A 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhongchao Cable A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A 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 Zhongchao Cable A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
