Dark Horse Beijing Tech (300688) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dark Horse Beijing Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dark Horse Beijing Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dark Horse Beijing Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dark Horse Beijing Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dark Horse Beijing Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dark Horse Beijing Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dark Horse Beijing Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dark Horse Beijing Tech
Strengths of Dark Horse Beijing Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dark Horse Beijing Tech are -
Analytics focus
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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 Business Services 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dark Horse Beijing Tech in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Ability to lead change in Business Services
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dark Horse Beijing Tech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dark Horse Beijing Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dark Horse Beijing Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dark Horse Beijing Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Learning organization
- Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dark Horse Beijing Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech is one of the leading players in the Business Services 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.
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Dark Horse Beijing Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dark Horse Beijing Tech are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Dark Horse Beijing Tech products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Dark Horse Beijing Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Dark Horse Beijing Tech is just above the Business Services 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.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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 Business Services industry using digital technology.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dark Horse Beijing Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dark Horse Beijing Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dark Horse Beijing 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 Business Services industry over the last five years. Dark Horse Beijing 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
Dark Horse Beijing Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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 Business Services industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Dark Horse Beijing Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dark Horse Beijing Tech are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Dark Horse Beijing Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Dark Horse Beijing Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Dark Horse Beijing Tech to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Dark Horse Beijing Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dark Horse Beijing Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dark Horse Beijing Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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. Dark Horse Beijing Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dark Horse Beijing Tech in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dark Horse Beijing Tech in the Business Services industry. Now Dark Horse Beijing Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Dark Horse Beijing Tech to increase its market reach. Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Threats Dark Horse Beijing Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dark Horse Beijing Tech are -
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Dark Horse Beijing Tech.
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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Dark Horse Beijing Tech
– 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 Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business Services 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech is facing in Business Services 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. Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Dark Horse Beijing 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 Business Services industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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. Dark Horse Beijing Tech can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dark Horse Beijing Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.