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 – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, 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 -

High brand equity

– Beijing Bashi Media has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beijing Bashi Media to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Beijing Bashi Media has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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.

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.

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.

Organizational Resilience of Beijing Bashi Media

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Beijing Bashi Media does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Beijing Bashi Media in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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.

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.

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.

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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 -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Beijing Bashi Media is just above the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Beijing Bashi Media has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Specialty) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beijing Bashi Media should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Beijing Bashi Media needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Beijing Bashi Media can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Beijing Bashi Media is planning to shift buying processes online.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Beijing Bashi Media has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

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.

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.

Employees’ less understanding of Beijing Bashi Media strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Beijing Bashi Media 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

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.

Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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.

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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 -

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.

Manufacturing automation

– Beijing Bashi Media can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Beijing Bashi Media 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Beijing Bashi Media can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Beijing Bashi Media is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Beijing Bashi Media can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beijing Bashi Media 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 Beijing Bashi Media to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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.

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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beijing Bashi Media in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Beijing Bashi Media can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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.

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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 -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Beijing Bashi Media can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Retail (Specialty) industry.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Beijing Bashi Media is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Beijing Bashi Media 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.

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.

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.

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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Beijing Bashi Media can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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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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