SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Suzhou Shijia Science (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Suzhou Shijia Science is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Suzhou Shijia Science
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Suzhou Shijia Science can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Suzhou Shijia Science, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Suzhou Shijia Science
2. Improving business portfolio management of Suzhou Shijia Science
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Suzhou Shijia Science
Strengths of Suzhou Shijia Science | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Suzhou Shijia Science are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Suzhou Shijia Science has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Suzhou Shijia Science staying ahead in the Misc. Capital Goods 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 Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
High brand equity
– Suzhou Shijia Science has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Suzhou Shijia Science to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Suzhou Shijia Science emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Suzhou Shijia Science has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Suzhou Shijia Science in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Suzhou Shijia Science has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Suzhou Shijia Science to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Capital Goods
– Suzhou Shijia Science is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Suzhou Shijia Science in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Suzhou Shijia Science in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Capital Goods industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Suzhou Shijia Science digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Organizational Resilience of Suzhou Shijia Science
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Suzhou Shijia Science does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Suzhou Shijia Science | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Suzhou Shijia Science are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Suzhou Shijia Science is just above the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
High dependence on Suzhou Shijia Science ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Suzhou Shijia Science still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Suzhou Shijia Science has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Suzhou Shijia Science has high operating costs in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Suzhou Shijia Science lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Suzhou Shijia Science has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Suzhou Shijia Science should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Suzhou Shijia Science has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry over the last five years. Suzhou Shijia Science even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Suzhou Shijia Science, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Suzhou Shijia Science 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 dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Suzhou Shijia Science supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Suzhou Shijia Science is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Suzhou Shijia Science vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Suzhou Shijia Science needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Suzhou Shijia Science Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Suzhou Shijia Science are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Suzhou Shijia Science is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Suzhou Shijia Science can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Suzhou Shijia Science in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Suzhou Shijia Science can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Suzhou Shijia Science can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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 Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Suzhou Shijia Science has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Suzhou Shijia Science to build a more holistic ecosystem for Suzhou Shijia Science products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Suzhou Shijia Science can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Suzhou Shijia Science operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Suzhou Shijia Science can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Suzhou Shijia Science has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Suzhou Shijia Science to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Suzhou Shijia Science to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
Threats Suzhou Shijia Science External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Suzhou Shijia Science are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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.
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 Suzhou Shijia Science in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Capital Goods industry are lowering. It can presents Suzhou Shijia Science with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Suzhou Shijia Science
– 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 Suzhou Shijia Science.
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.
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 Suzhou Shijia Science.
Environmental challenges
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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. Suzhou Shijia Science can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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. Capital Goods industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Suzhou Shijia Science is facing in Misc. Capital Goods 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Suzhou Shijia Science can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science 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 Suzhou Shijia Science needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.