SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hangzhou Landscape (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hangzhou Landscape is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hangzhou Landscape
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hangzhou Landscape can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hangzhou Landscape, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hangzhou Landscape
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hangzhou Landscape
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hangzhou Landscape
Strengths of Hangzhou Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hangzhou Landscape are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hangzhou Landscape has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hangzhou Landscape staying ahead in the Personal Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Hangzhou Landscape is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Hangzhou Landscape is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hangzhou Landscape in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hangzhou Landscape in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Hangzhou Landscape has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hangzhou Landscape to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Hangzhou Landscape is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
Analytics focus
– Hangzhou Landscape 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 Personal 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hangzhou Landscape is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hangzhou Landscape 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.
High brand equity
– Hangzhou Landscape has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hangzhou Landscape to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Hangzhou Landscape has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hangzhou Landscape to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hangzhou Landscape to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Hangzhou Landscape
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hangzhou Landscape does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hangzhou Landscape emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Hangzhou Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hangzhou Landscape are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hangzhou Landscape, in the dynamic environment of Personal Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hangzhou Landscape has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hangzhou Landscape is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Hangzhou Landscape needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hangzhou Landscape to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Hangzhou Landscape needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hangzhou Landscape needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hangzhou Landscape can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hangzhou Landscape is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Hangzhou Landscape 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.
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 Hangzhou Landscape supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hangzhou Landscape is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hangzhou Landscape vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Hangzhou Landscape ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hangzhou Landscape still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hangzhou Landscape has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hangzhou Landscape products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hangzhou Landscape needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Hangzhou Landscape 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 Personal Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hangzhou Landscape has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal 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.
Hangzhou Landscape Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hangzhou Landscape 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. Hangzhou Landscape can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hangzhou Landscape has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hangzhou Landscape to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hangzhou Landscape to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hangzhou Landscape can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hangzhou Landscape 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, Hangzhou Landscape is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hangzhou Landscape can utilize new technology in the field of Personal Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hangzhou Landscape can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hangzhou Landscape to increase its market reach. Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hangzhou Landscape can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hangzhou Landscape operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hangzhou Landscape has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal Services industry. This can help Hangzhou Landscape to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hangzhou Landscape products in the Personal Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Hangzhou Landscape External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hangzhou Landscape are -
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. Hangzhou Landscape needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hangzhou Landscape may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal 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 Hangzhou Landscape 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Hangzhou Landscape 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. Hangzhou Landscape can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
Increasing wage structure of Hangzhou Landscape
– 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 Hangzhou Landscape.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Hangzhou Landscape with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
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 Hangzhou Landscape.
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. Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hangzhou Landscape has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hangzhou Landscape needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal 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.
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 Hangzhou Landscape in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hangzhou Landscape 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hangzhou Landscape Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape 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 Hangzhou Landscape needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.