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 – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions,
increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, 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 -
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Dark Horse Beijing Tech staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dark Horse Beijing Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Dark Horse Beijing Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dark Horse Beijing Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dark Horse Beijing Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) 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.
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 -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dark Horse Beijing Tech, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dark Horse Beijing Tech has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ less understanding of Dark Horse Beijing Tech strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dark Horse Beijing Tech don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Dark Horse Beijing Tech is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Dark Horse Beijing Tech has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Dark Horse Beijing Tech should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dark Horse Beijing Tech has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dark Horse Beijing Tech lucrative customers.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Dark Horse Beijing Tech can develop new processes and procedures in Business Services 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.
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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dark Horse Beijing 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Dark Horse Beijing 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.
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.
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.
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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dark Horse Beijing Tech can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Dark Horse Beijing Tech 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 Dark Horse Beijing Tech to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Dark Horse Beijing Tech has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Dark Horse Beijing Tech to build a more holistic ecosystem for Dark Horse Beijing Tech products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dark Horse Beijing 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 Business Services industry.
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 -
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dark Horse Beijing 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 Business Services sector.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Dark Horse Beijing 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Dark Horse Beijing Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
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.
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. Dark Horse Beijing Tech needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dark Horse Beijing Tech in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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.
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.