Sunny Loan Top (600830) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Department & Discount)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sunny Loan Top (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sunny Loan Top is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sunny Loan Top can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sunny Loan Top, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sunny Loan Top
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sunny Loan Top
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Retail (Department & Discount) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sunny Loan Top
Strengths of Sunny Loan Top | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sunny Loan Top are -
High brand equity
– Sunny Loan Top has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sunny Loan Top to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sunny Loan Top 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.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Department & Discount)
– Sunny Loan Top is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sunny Loan Top in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Sunny Loan Top is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Department & Discount) sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sunny Loan Top is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This has provided Sunny Loan Top 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– Sunny Loan Top has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sunny Loan Top to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sunny Loan Top to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sunny Loan Top is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sunny Loan Top has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Department & Discount) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sunny Loan Top have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sunny Loan Top emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sunny Loan Top has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sunny Loan Top 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sunny Loan Top comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sunny Loan Top
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sunny Loan Top does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Sunny Loan Top | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sunny Loan Top are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Sunny Loan Top products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sunny Loan Top needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sunny Loan Top 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.
High dependence on Sunny Loan Top ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sunny Loan Top still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Department & Discount) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sunny Loan Top has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sunny Loan Top is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, but Sunny Loan Top needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sunny Loan Top to focus more on services in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Sunny Loan Top strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sunny Loan Top 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sunny Loan Top, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Department & Discount) industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sunny Loan Top needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sunny Loan Top can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sunny Loan Top is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) industry over the last five years. Sunny Loan Top 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Sunny Loan Top 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sunny Loan Top is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sunny Loan Top to provide better information regarding Retail (Department & Discount) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Sunny Loan Top Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sunny Loan Top are -
Manufacturing automation
– Sunny Loan Top can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sunny Loan Top can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Sunny Loan Top can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sunny Loan Top is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sunny Loan Top can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Department & Discount) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Sunny Loan Top 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sunny Loan Top 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. Sunny Loan Top 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sunny Loan Top has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This can help Sunny Loan Top to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sunny Loan Top products in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top 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, Sunny Loan Top can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sunny Loan Top operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Department & Discount) sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sunny Loan Top can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Sunny Loan Top External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sunny Loan Top are -
Environmental challenges
– Sunny Loan Top 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. Sunny Loan Top can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) 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 Sunny Loan Top.
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 Sunny Loan Top business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Department & Discount) industry are lowering. It can presents Sunny Loan Top with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sunny Loan Top has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sunny Loan Top needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sunny Loan Top in Retail (Department & Discount) industry. The Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Sunny Loan Top 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 (Department & Discount) industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sunny Loan Top is facing in Retail (Department & Discount) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sunny Loan Top Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top 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 Sunny Loan Top needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.