SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Everyday Network (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Everyday Network is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Everyday Network can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Everyday Network, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Everyday Network
2. Improving business portfolio management of Everyday Network
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Computer Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Everyday Network
Strengths of Everyday Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Everyday Network are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Everyday Network in Computer Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Computer Services
– Everyday Network is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Everyday Network in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Everyday Network
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Everyday Network does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Everyday Network has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Everyday Network 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Everyday Network is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Everyday Network 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Everyday Network has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Everyday Network staying ahead in the Computer Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Everyday Network in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Everyday Network has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Everyday Network to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Everyday Network 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Everyday Network is one of the most innovative firm in Computer Services sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Everyday Network has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Everyday Network have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Everyday Network comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Computer Services industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Everyday Network 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.
Weaknesses of Everyday Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Everyday Network are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Everyday Network 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Everyday Network 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 Computer Services industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Everyday Network needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Everyday Network can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Everyday Network is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Everyday Network supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Everyday Network is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Everyday Network vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Everyday Network, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Everyday Network has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Need for greater diversity
– Everyday Network 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Everyday Network has high operating costs in the Computer Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Everyday Network lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Services industry, Everyday Network needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Employees’ less understanding of Everyday Network strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Computer Services 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Everyday Network needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Everyday Network Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Everyday Network are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Everyday Network to increase its market reach. Everyday Network 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Everyday Network can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Computer Services industry.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Everyday Network can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Everyday Network 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 Computer Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Everyday Network 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. Everyday Network 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Everyday Network has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Computer Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Everyday Network to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Everyday Network to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Everyday Network can develop new processes and procedures in Computer Services industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Everyday Network 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Everyday Network 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Everyday Network can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Computer Services 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Everyday Network can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Everyday Network External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Everyday Network are -
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Everyday Network 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.
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 Everyday Network business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Everyday Network can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Everyday Network.
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 Everyday Network in the Computer Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Everyday Network 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 Computer Services industry regulations.
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 Everyday Network in Computer Services industry. The Computer Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Everyday Network has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Everyday Network needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer 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.
Environmental challenges
– Everyday Network 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. Everyday Network can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Computer Services industry.
Increasing wage structure of Everyday Network
– 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 Everyday Network.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Everyday Network Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network 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 Everyday Network needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.