Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kee Ever Bright Decorative is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kee Ever Bright Decorative can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kee Ever Bright Decorative, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
Strengths of Kee Ever Bright Decorative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kee Ever Bright Decorative are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kee Ever Bright Decorative to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kee Ever Bright Decorative to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kee Ever Bright Decorative digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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
- Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kee Ever Bright Decorative emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kee Ever Bright Decorative to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kee Ever Bright Decorative does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kee Ever Bright Decorative comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kee Ever Bright Decorative staying ahead in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Kee Ever Bright Decorative | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kee Ever Bright Decorative are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kee Ever Bright Decorative has some of the most successful models in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kee Ever Bright Decorative should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kee Ever Bright Decorative is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kee Ever Bright Decorative vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kee Ever Bright Decorative is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kee Ever Bright Decorative to provide better information regarding Fabricated Plastic & Rubber products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kee Ever Bright Decorative is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but Kee Ever Bright Decorative needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kee Ever Bright Decorative to focus more on services in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Kee Ever Bright Decorative ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kee Ever Bright Decorative still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kee Ever Bright Decorative has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kee Ever Bright Decorative, in the dynamic environment of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kee Ever Bright Decorative has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kee Ever Bright Decorative needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kee Ever Bright Decorative can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kee Ever Bright Decorative is planning to shift buying processes online.
Kee Ever Bright Decorative Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kee Ever Bright Decorative are -
Manufacturing automation
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kee Ever Bright Decorative in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kee Ever Bright Decorative to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kee Ever Bright Decorative to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kee Ever Bright Decorative has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Kee Ever Bright Decorative to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kee Ever Bright Decorative products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kee Ever Bright Decorative can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Threats Kee Ever Bright Decorative External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kee Ever Bright Decorative are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kee Ever Bright Decorative in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry are lowering. It can presents Kee Ever Bright Decorative with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kee Ever Bright Decorative can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative prominent markets.
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. Kee Ever Bright Decorative needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing wage structure of Kee Ever Bright Decorative
– 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative.
Environmental challenges
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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. Kee Ever Bright Decorative can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry and other sectors.
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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kee Ever Bright Decorative Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative 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 Kee Ever Bright Decorative needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
