SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Suzhou Goldengreen Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Suzhou Goldengreen Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Photography sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
Strengths of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Learning organization
- Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Suzhou Goldengreen Tech emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Suzhou Goldengreen Tech staying ahead in the Photography industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Photography
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is one of the leading players in the Photography industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Photography industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Suzhou Goldengreen Tech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Photography industry
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Photography industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Suzhou Goldengreen Tech digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Photography industry. This has provided Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Organizational Resilience of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Suzhou Goldengreen Tech does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Analytics focus
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Photography 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Suzhou Goldengreen Tech needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Photography industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Photography 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, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Photography industry over the last five years. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has high operating costs in the Photography industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Suzhou Goldengreen Tech lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Photography 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to provide better information regarding Photography products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is just above the Photography 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is one of the leading players in the Photography industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Photography industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Photography industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Photography industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Suzhou Goldengreen Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Photography industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Suzhou Goldengreen Tech in the Photography industry. Now Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Photography sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Photography industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Photography industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Suzhou Goldengreen Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Photography sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can develop new processes and procedures in Photography 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.
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. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Suzhou Goldengreen Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Suzhou Goldengreen Tech to increase its market reach. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Threats Suzhou Goldengreen Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Photography industry.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Photography industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Photography 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Photography industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Photography industry are lowering. It can presents Suzhou Goldengreen Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Photography sector.
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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech in the Photography sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech
– 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech.
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. Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Photography industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Suzhou Goldengreen Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech 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 Suzhou Goldengreen Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.