Suzhou Institute Building (603183) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Suzhou Institute Building (China)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Suzhou Institute Building is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Suzhou Institute Building

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Suzhou Institute Building can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Suzhou Institute Building, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Suzhou Institute Building operates in.

According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Suzhou Institute Building can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Suzhou Institute Building
2. Improving business portfolio management of Suzhou Institute Building
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Suzhou Institute Building

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Strengths of Suzhou Institute Building | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Suzhou Institute Building are -

Ability to recruit top talent

– Suzhou Institute Building is one of the leading players in the Construction 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Suzhou Institute Building in Construction 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 Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Suzhou Institute Building has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Suzhou Institute Building has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Suzhou Institute Building have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

High brand equity

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Suzhou Institute Building comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Suzhou Institute Building in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Suzhou Institute Building has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Suzhou Institute Building to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Diverse revenue streams

– Suzhou Institute Building is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Learning organization

- Suzhou Institute Building 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 Institute Building is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Suzhou Institute Building emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Training and development

– Suzhou Institute Building has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry

– Suzhou Institute Building is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

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Weaknesses of Suzhou Institute Building | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Suzhou Institute Building are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Suzhou Institute Building is just above the Construction 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Suzhou Institute Building has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction 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.

Employees’ less understanding of Suzhou Institute Building strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Suzhou Institute Building is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Suzhou Institute Building to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Suzhou Institute Building 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 Construction Services industry.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Suzhou Institute Building needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Suzhou Institute Building can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Suzhou Institute Building is planning to shift buying processes online.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of China, Suzhou Institute Building needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Suzhou Institute Building 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.

Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Suzhou Institute Building 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.

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Suzhou Institute Building Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Suzhou Institute Building are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Suzhou Institute Building can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Suzhou Institute Building can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Buying journey improvements

– Suzhou Institute Building can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Suzhou Institute Building can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Suzhou Institute Building has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Suzhou Institute Building to build a more holistic ecosystem for Suzhou Institute Building products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Suzhou Institute Building in the Construction Services industry. Now Suzhou Institute Building can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Suzhou Institute Building has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Suzhou Institute Building to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Suzhou Institute Building to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 Institute Building can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Suzhou Institute Building operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Suzhou Institute Building to increase its market reach. Suzhou Institute Building 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Suzhou Institute Building in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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Threats Suzhou Institute Building External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Suzhou Institute Building are -

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Suzhou Institute Building may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Suzhou Institute Building 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 Construction Services industry.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Suzhou Institute Building 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 Institute Building prominent markets.

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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Suzhou Institute Building can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Suzhou Institute Building 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.

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 Institute Building 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 Institute Building.

Regulatory challenges

– Suzhou Institute Building 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 Construction Services industry regulations.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Suzhou Institute Building is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. Suzhou Institute Building needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Suzhou Institute Building has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Suzhou Institute Building needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Suzhou Institute Building Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Suzhou Institute Building 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 Institute Building 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 Institute Building 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 Institute Building 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 Institute Building needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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