SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhejiang Goldensea Environment (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhejiang Goldensea Environment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
Strengths of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhejiang Goldensea Environment staying ahead in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Learning organization
- Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhejiang Goldensea Environment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Zhejiang Goldensea Environment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Zhejiang Goldensea Environment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhejiang Goldensea Environment does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Capital Goods
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Zhejiang Goldensea Environment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment are -
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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Zhejiang Goldensea Environment vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zhejiang Goldensea Environment to provide better information regarding Misc. Capital Goods products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has high operating costs in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Zhejiang Goldensea Environment lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zhejiang Goldensea Environment, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Zhejiang Goldensea Environment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Capital Goods industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zhejiang Goldensea Environment in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Capital Goods industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Manufacturing automation
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Zhejiang Goldensea Environment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zhejiang Goldensea Environment can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Threats Zhejiang Goldensea Environment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment are -
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. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Zhejiang Goldensea Environment is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zhejiang Goldensea Environment in Misc. Capital Goods industry. The Misc. Capital Goods 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment
– 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Zhejiang Goldensea Environment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Zhejiang Goldensea Environment needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhejiang Goldensea Environment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment 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 Zhejiang Goldensea Environment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.