SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shanghai Nar Industrial (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shanghai Nar Industrial is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Nar Industrial
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shanghai Nar Industrial can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shanghai Nar Industrial, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shanghai Nar Industrial
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shanghai Nar Industrial
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Printing Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shanghai Nar Industrial
Strengths of Shanghai Nar Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shanghai Nar Industrial are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shanghai Nar Industrial has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shanghai Nar Industrial staying ahead in the Printing Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Printing 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shanghai Nar Industrial is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in China. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in China. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shanghai Nar Industrial has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shanghai Nar Industrial have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Shanghai Nar Industrial is one of the most innovative firm in Printing Services sector.
Ability to lead change in Printing Services
– Shanghai Nar Industrial is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Shanghai Nar Industrial in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shanghai Nar Industrial in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Shanghai Nar Industrial has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shanghai Nar Industrial to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Shanghai Nar Industrial
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shanghai Nar Industrial does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing Services industry
– Shanghai Nar Industrial is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shanghai Nar Industrial emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Printing Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shanghai Nar Industrial digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shanghai Nar Industrial has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High brand equity
– Shanghai Nar Industrial has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shanghai Nar Industrial to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Shanghai Nar Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shanghai Nar Industrial are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Shanghai Nar Industrial needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shanghai Nar Industrial is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing Services industry in last five years.
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 Nar Industrial supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shanghai Nar Industrial is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shanghai Nar Industrial vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Printing Services industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Printing Services industry, Shanghai Nar Industrial 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
– Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shanghai Nar Industrial still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Printing Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shanghai Nar Industrial has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Shanghai Nar Industrial strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shanghai Nar Industrial 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shanghai Nar Industrial has some of the most successful models in the Printing Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shanghai Nar Industrial should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shanghai Nar Industrial has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shanghai Nar Industrial has high operating costs in the Printing Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shanghai Nar Industrial lucrative customers.
Shanghai Nar Industrial Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shanghai Nar Industrial are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shanghai Nar Industrial has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shanghai Nar Industrial to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shanghai Nar Industrial to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shanghai Nar Industrial is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shanghai Nar Industrial can utilize new technology in the field of Printing Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shanghai Nar Industrial 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shanghai Nar Industrial 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Shanghai Nar Industrial can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shanghai Nar Industrial can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Shanghai Nar Industrial to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Shanghai Nar Industrial can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing 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 Nar Industrial 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 Printing Services industry.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Shanghai Nar Industrial to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shanghai Nar Industrial in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Shanghai Nar Industrial External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shanghai Nar Industrial are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Printing Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shanghai Nar Industrial can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing Services industry are lowering. It can presents Shanghai Nar Industrial with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shanghai Nar Industrial 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.
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 Shanghai Nar Industrial in Printing Services industry. The Printing Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
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 Shanghai Nar Industrial.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shanghai Nar Industrial may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing Services sector.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Shanghai Nar Industrial business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shanghai Nar Industrial has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shanghai Nar Industrial needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing 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.
Increasing wage structure of Shanghai Nar Industrial
– 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 Shanghai Nar Industrial.
Regulatory challenges
– Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Printing Services industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shanghai Nar Industrial Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shanghai Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial 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 Nar Industrial needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
