Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment
Strengths of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Training and development
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Analytics focus
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Recreational 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.
High brand equity
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Products industry
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment staying ahead in the Recreational Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Learning organization
- Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Recreational Products
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Products industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is just above the Recreational 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Recreational Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Recreational Products industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Recreational Products industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment in the Recreational Products industry. Now Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to increase its market reach. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Products 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Products sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Products industry. This can help Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment products in the Recreational Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Products 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.
Threats Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment are -
Regulatory challenges
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Recreational Products industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment in Recreational Products industry. The Recreational Products 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.
Increasing wage structure of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment
– 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment.
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. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Recreational Products 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment in the Recreational Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational 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
– Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Recreational Products industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment is facing in Recreational Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment prominent markets.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Products sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment 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 Jiangsu Jinling Sports Equipment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.