Orient Zirconic A (2167) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Orient Zirconic A (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Orient Zirconic A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Orient Zirconic A

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Orient Zirconic A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Orient Zirconic A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Orient Zirconic 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Orient Zirconic A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Orient Zirconic A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Orient Zirconic A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Orient Zirconic A

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Strengths of Orient Zirconic A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Orient Zirconic A are -

Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Orient Zirconic A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Orient Zirconic 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Orient Zirconic A has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Orient Zirconic A 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.

Training and development

– Orient Zirconic 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Orient Zirconic A 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.

Learning organization

- Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Orient Zirconic A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– Orient Zirconic A is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Orient Zirconic 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.

Ability to lead change in Metal Mining

– Orient Zirconic A is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Orient Zirconic A 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 Orient Zirconic A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Orient Zirconic A in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Orient Zirconic A is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Orient Zirconic A in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Orient Zirconic A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Orient Zirconic A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry

– Orient Zirconic A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Orient Zirconic A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Orient Zirconic A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

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Weaknesses of Orient Zirconic A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Orient Zirconic A are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Orient Zirconic A, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Orient Zirconic A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Lack of clear differentiation of Orient Zirconic A products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Orient Zirconic A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High dependence on Orient Zirconic A ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Orient Zirconic A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Metal Mining industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Orient Zirconic A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Orient Zirconic A is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Orient Zirconic A is just above the Metal Mining 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Orient Zirconic A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Orient Zirconic A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Orient Zirconic A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Orient Zirconic A is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Orient Zirconic A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Orient Zirconic A to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Orient Zirconic 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Orient Zirconic A strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Orient Zirconic A don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Orient Zirconic 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.

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Orient Zirconic A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Orient Zirconic A are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Orient Zirconic 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Orient Zirconic 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Orient Zirconic A to increase its market reach. Orient Zirconic A 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Orient Zirconic A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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 Orient Zirconic 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Orient Zirconic A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Orient Zirconic A can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Orient Zirconic 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Orient Zirconic A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Orient Zirconic A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Orient Zirconic A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Orient Zirconic 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 Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Orient Zirconic 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Orient Zirconic A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Orient Zirconic A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Orient Zirconic A products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

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Threats Orient Zirconic A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Orient Zirconic A are -

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 Orient Zirconic A.

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. Orient Zirconic A 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Orient Zirconic A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

New competition

– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Orient Zirconic A in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Orient Zirconic 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 Metal Mining industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Orient Zirconic A 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.

Regulatory challenges

– Orient Zirconic A 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Orient Zirconic A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Metal Mining industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Orient Zirconic A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Metal Mining 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Orient Zirconic A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Orient Zirconic A is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing wage structure of Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic A.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic A prominent markets.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Orient Zirconic A Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic 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 Orient Zirconic A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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