SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dalian Zhiyun Automation (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dalian Zhiyun Automation is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dalian Zhiyun Automation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dalian Zhiyun Automation can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dalian Zhiyun Automation, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dalian Zhiyun Automation
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dalian Zhiyun Automation
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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation
Strengths of Dalian Zhiyun Automation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dalian Zhiyun Automation are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dalian Zhiyun Automation to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dalian Zhiyun Automation to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dalian Zhiyun Automation have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dalian Zhiyun Automation in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Dalian Zhiyun Automation has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dalian Zhiyun Automation to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dalian Zhiyun Automation comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Organizational Resilience of Dalian Zhiyun Automation
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Dalian Zhiyun Automation does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Capital Goods
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Training and development
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Weaknesses of Dalian Zhiyun Automation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dalian Zhiyun Automation are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Dalian Zhiyun Automation products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dalian Zhiyun Automation needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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. Dalian Zhiyun Automation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Dalian Zhiyun Automation ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dalian Zhiyun Automation is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dalian Zhiyun Automation has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Misc. Capital Goods industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dalian Zhiyun Automation, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dalian Zhiyun Automation has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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. Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Dalian Zhiyun Automation is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dalian Zhiyun Automation vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Dalian Zhiyun Automation is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Dalian Zhiyun Automation to provide better information regarding Misc. Capital Goods products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Dalian Zhiyun Automation Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dalian Zhiyun Automation are -
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Dalian Zhiyun Automation can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Dalian Zhiyun Automation to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dalian Zhiyun Automation products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dalian Zhiyun Automation to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dalian Zhiyun Automation is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dalian Zhiyun Automation can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dalian Zhiyun Automation operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Dalian Zhiyun Automation can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dalian Zhiyun Automation in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Dalian Zhiyun Automation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dalian Zhiyun Automation are -
Increasing wage structure of Dalian Zhiyun Automation
– 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation.
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. Dalian Zhiyun Automation needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dalian Zhiyun Automation needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Dalian Zhiyun Automation is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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.
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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Dalian Zhiyun Automation business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dalian Zhiyun Automation may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Capital Goods sector.
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. Dalian Zhiyun Automation can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Capital Goods industry are lowering. It can presents Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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, Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dalian Zhiyun Automation Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation 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 Dalian Zhiyun Automation needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.