Jianghuai Eng A (816) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Capital Goods
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jianghuai Eng A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jianghuai Eng A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption,
increasing commodity prices, 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 Jianghuai Eng A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jianghuai Eng A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jianghuai Eng A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jianghuai Eng A
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 Jianghuai Eng A
Strengths of Jianghuai Eng A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jianghuai Eng A are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Jianghuai Eng A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jianghuai Eng A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jianghuai Eng A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jianghuai Eng A in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Jianghuai Eng A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jianghuai Eng A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Capital Goods
– Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jianghuai Eng A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Analytics focus
– Jianghuai Eng A 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 Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Jianghuai Eng A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jianghuai Eng A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jianghuai Eng A in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Jianghuai Eng A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jianghuai Eng A are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Jianghuai Eng A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jianghuai Eng A are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jianghuai Eng A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, but Jianghuai Eng A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jianghuai Eng A to focus more on services in the Misc. Capital Goods industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Jianghuai Eng A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jianghuai Eng A 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jianghuai Eng A has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Capital Goods industry over the last five years. Jianghuai Eng A even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High dependence on Jianghuai Eng A ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jianghuai Eng A still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jianghuai Eng A has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Jianghuai Eng A 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, Jianghuai Eng A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jianghuai Eng A 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, Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Jianghuai Eng A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Jianghuai Eng A, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jianghuai Eng A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jianghuai Eng A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Capital Goods industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jianghuai Eng A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jianghuai Eng A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Jianghuai Eng A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jianghuai Eng A are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jianghuai Eng A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jianghuai Eng A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jianghuai Eng A to increase its market reach. Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Jianghuai Eng A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jianghuai Eng A can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
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. Jianghuai Eng A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jianghuai Eng A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Jianghuai Eng A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jianghuai Eng A products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Jianghuai Eng A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jianghuai Eng A are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Increasing wage structure of Jianghuai Eng A
– 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 Jianghuai Eng A.
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 Jianghuai Eng A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Capital Goods industry are lowering. It can presents Jianghuai Eng A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Environmental challenges
– Jianghuai Eng A 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. Jianghuai Eng A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jianghuai Eng A is facing in Misc. Capital Goods 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. Jianghuai Eng A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jianghuai Eng A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jianghuai Eng A 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.
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. Jianghuai Eng A 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jianghuai Eng A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A 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 Jianghuai Eng A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.