Beijing Bashi Media (600386) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beijing Bashi Media (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beijing Bashi Media is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beijing Bashi Media

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beijing Bashi Media can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beijing Bashi Media, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Beijing Bashi Media can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beijing Bashi Media
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beijing Bashi Media
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beijing Bashi Media

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Strengths of Beijing Bashi Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Beijing Bashi Media are -

Digital Transformation in Retail (Specialty) industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Beijing Bashi Media digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Learning organization

- Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beijing Bashi Media emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Specialty) industry

– Beijing Bashi Media is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Beijing Bashi Media has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Beijing Bashi Media have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Training and development

– Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Specialty) industry

– Beijing Bashi Media has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beijing Bashi Media to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beijing Bashi Media to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Beijing Bashi Media in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Beijing Bashi Media has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Beijing Bashi Media to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)

– Beijing Bashi Media is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Beijing Bashi Media in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Analytics focus

– Beijing Bashi Media 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 Retail (Specialty) 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Beijing Bashi Media is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Beijing Bashi Media has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Beijing Bashi Media staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Beijing Bashi Media | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Beijing Bashi Media are -

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 Beijing Bashi Media supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Beijing Bashi Media is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Beijing Bashi Media vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Beijing Bashi Media products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Beijing Bashi Media needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Beijing Bashi Media, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Specialty) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Beijing Bashi Media has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of China, Beijing Bashi Media needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Beijing Bashi Media is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Beijing Bashi Media has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Specialty) 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 decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beijing Bashi Media has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Beijing Bashi Media is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, but Beijing Bashi Media needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beijing Bashi Media to focus more on services in the Retail (Specialty) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Beijing Bashi Media 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 Retail (Specialty) industry using digital technology.

High dependence on Beijing Bashi Media ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Beijing Bashi Media still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Beijing Bashi Media has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

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Beijing Bashi Media Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Beijing Bashi Media are -

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 Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beijing Bashi Media can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beijing Bashi Media operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Specialty) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Beijing Bashi Media can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beijing Bashi Media can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beijing Bashi Media in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Beijing Bashi Media has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Beijing Bashi Media to build a more holistic ecosystem for Beijing Bashi Media products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Beijing Bashi Media can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Specialty) 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Beijing Bashi Media to increase its market reach. Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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. Beijing Bashi Media can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Beijing Bashi Media has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Beijing Bashi Media to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Beijing Bashi Media to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Specialty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Beijing Bashi Media can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Beijing Bashi Media can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.

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Threats Beijing Bashi Media External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Beijing Bashi Media 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. Beijing Bashi Media needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing wage structure of Beijing Bashi Media

– 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 Beijing Bashi Media.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beijing Bashi Media may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Specialty) sector.

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. Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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 Beijing Bashi Media.

Environmental challenges

– Beijing Bashi Media 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. Beijing Bashi Media can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry.

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 Beijing Bashi Media business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beijing Bashi Media in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Beijing Bashi Media 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 Retail (Specialty) industry regulations.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Specialty) industry are lowering. It can presents Beijing Bashi Media with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Specialty) sector.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Beijing Bashi Media 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 Retail (Specialty) 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.

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 Beijing Bashi Media in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beijing Bashi Media Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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