SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xuzhou Wuyang Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xuzhou Wuyang Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech
Strengths of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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)
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Xuzhou Wuyang Tech staying ahead in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xuzhou Wuyang Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
High brand equity
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Xuzhou Wuyang Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Weaknesses of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Xuzhou Wuyang Tech, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry over the last five years. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xuzhou Wuyang Tech vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Need for greater diversity
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has high operating costs in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Xuzhou Wuyang Tech lucrative customers.
High dependence on Xuzhou Wuyang Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Xuzhou Wuyang Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xuzhou Wuyang Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
Xuzhou Wuyang Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to increase its market reach. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Xuzhou Wuyang Tech in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Now Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Xuzhou Wuyang Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xuzhou Wuyang Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Xuzhou Wuyang Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech.
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.
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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
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.
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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xuzhou Wuyang Tech can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Xuzhou Wuyang Tech in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Scientific & Technical Instr. industry are lowering. It can presents Xuzhou Wuyang Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xuzhou Wuyang Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech 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 Xuzhou Wuyang Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.