SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shanghai Emperor (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shanghai Emperor is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shanghai Emperor can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shanghai Emperor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shanghai Emperor
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shanghai Emperor
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shanghai Emperor
Strengths of Shanghai Emperor | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shanghai Emperor are -
Analytics focus
– Shanghai Emperor 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 Waste Management Services 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.
High brand equity
– Shanghai Emperor has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shanghai Emperor to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shanghai Emperor in Waste Management Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shanghai Emperor emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Shanghai Emperor has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shanghai Emperor 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shanghai Emperor comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Waste Management 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shanghai Emperor has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shanghai Emperor staying ahead in the Waste Management Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shanghai Emperor in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Shanghai Emperor has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shanghai Emperor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shanghai Emperor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shanghai Emperor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shanghai Emperor is present in almost all the verticals within the Waste Management Services industry. This has provided Shanghai Emperor 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.
Weaknesses of Shanghai Emperor | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shanghai Emperor are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Waste Management Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Shanghai Emperor 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 Waste Management Services industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shanghai Emperor has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Waste Management 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.
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 Shanghai Emperor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shanghai Emperor is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shanghai Emperor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shanghai Emperor needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Waste Management Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shanghai Emperor can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shanghai Emperor is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shanghai Emperor is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shanghai Emperor to provide better information regarding Waste Management Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shanghai Emperor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shanghai Emperor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shanghai Emperor is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shanghai Emperor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Waste Management Services industry, but Shanghai Emperor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shanghai Emperor to focus more on services in the Waste Management Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Shanghai Emperor needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Shanghai Emperor has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on Shanghai Emperor ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shanghai Emperor still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Waste Management Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shanghai Emperor has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Shanghai Emperor Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shanghai Emperor are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Shanghai Emperor in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Shanghai Emperor can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Waste Management Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shanghai Emperor can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Shanghai Emperor 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Shanghai Emperor can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Waste Management 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 Shanghai Emperor 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shanghai Emperor has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Waste Management Services industry. This can help Shanghai Emperor to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shanghai Emperor products in the Waste Management Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Shanghai Emperor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shanghai Emperor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Waste Management Services sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shanghai Emperor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shanghai Emperor can utilize new technology in the field of Waste Management Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shanghai Emperor 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shanghai Emperor to increase its market reach. Shanghai Emperor 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Waste Management Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shanghai Emperor 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. Shanghai Emperor 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shanghai Emperor in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Waste Management Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Shanghai Emperor External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shanghai Emperor are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shanghai Emperor may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Waste Management Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shanghai Emperor 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 Waste Management Services industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Shanghai Emperor 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 Waste Management Services industry regulations.
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 Shanghai Emperor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shanghai Emperor is facing in Waste Management Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Shanghai Emperor needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Shanghai Emperor can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Waste Management Services industry.
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. Shanghai Emperor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Waste Management Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shanghai Emperor has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shanghai Emperor needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Waste Management Services industry are lowering. It can presents Shanghai Emperor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Waste Management Services 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 Shanghai Emperor in the Waste Management Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Emperor Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor 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 Shanghai Emperor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.