SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Beijing Qianjing Landscape (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Beijing Qianjing Landscape is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Beijing Qianjing Landscape
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Beijing Qianjing Landscape can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Beijing Qianjing Landscape, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Beijing Qianjing Landscape can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Beijing Qianjing Landscape
2. Improving business portfolio management of Beijing Qianjing Landscape
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Beijing Qianjing Landscape
Strengths of Beijing Qianjing Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Beijing Qianjing Landscape are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Personal Services industry
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Beijing Qianjing Landscape to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Beijing Qianjing Landscape to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Beijing Qianjing Landscape in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Beijing Qianjing Landscape in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 recruit top talent
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape is one of the leading players in the Personal Services 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
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Beijing Qianjing Landscape have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Beijing Qianjing Landscape to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Beijing Qianjing Landscape is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Beijing Qianjing Landscape is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Beijing Qianjing Landscape emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Beijing Qianjing Landscape | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Beijing Qianjing Landscape are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Beijing Qianjing Landscape is just above the Personal Services 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Beijing Qianjing Landscape, in the dynamic environment of Personal Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Beijing Qianjing Landscape has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Beijing Qianjing Landscape is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Beijing Qianjing Landscape needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Beijing Qianjing Landscape to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Beijing Qianjing Landscape has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal Services industry over the last five years. Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Personal Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Beijing Qianjing Landscape has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal Services 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 to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Beijing Qianjing Landscape is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Beijing Qianjing Landscape to provide better information regarding Personal Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Beijing Qianjing Landscape is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Beijing Qianjing Landscape has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Beijing Qianjing Landscape should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Beijing Qianjing Landscape Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Beijing Qianjing Landscape are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Beijing Qianjing Landscape to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Beijing Qianjing Landscape in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Personal Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape can develop new processes and procedures in Personal 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Beijing Qianjing Landscape to increase its market reach. Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Beijing Qianjing Landscape in the Personal Services industry. Now Beijing Qianjing Landscape can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Beijing Qianjing Landscape can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Beijing Qianjing Landscape operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Threats Beijing Qianjing Landscape External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Beijing Qianjing Landscape are -
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Beijing Qianjing Landscape needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Beijing Qianjing Landscape prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Beijing Qianjing Landscape is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Beijing Qianjing Landscape in Personal Services industry. The Personal 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.
Increasing wage structure of Beijing Qianjing Landscape
– 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 Qianjing Landscape.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Beijing Qianjing Landscape may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
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 Qianjing Landscape business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Beijing Qianjing Landscape in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Beijing Qianjing Landscape can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Beijing Qianjing Landscape Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Beijing Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape 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 Qianjing Landscape needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.