SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xiakelor Spinning (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xiakelor Spinning is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xiakelor Spinning
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xiakelor Spinning can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xiakelor Spinning, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xiakelor Spinning
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xiakelor Spinning
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xiakelor Spinning
Strengths of Xiakelor Spinning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xiakelor Spinning are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Xiakelor Spinning comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
High brand equity
– Xiakelor Spinning has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Xiakelor Spinning to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Xiakelor Spinning in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Xiakelor Spinning has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Xiakelor Spinning to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Xiakelor Spinning is one of the most innovative firm in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Organizational Resilience of Xiakelor Spinning
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Xiakelor Spinning does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber
– Xiakelor Spinning is one of the leading players in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Xiakelor Spinning 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)
– Xiakelor Spinning has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Xiakelor Spinning staying ahead in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Xiakelor Spinning is one of the leading players in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Learning organization
- Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xiakelor Spinning emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Xiakelor Spinning is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This has provided Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Analytics focus
– Xiakelor Spinning 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Digital Transformation in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Xiakelor Spinning digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Weaknesses of Xiakelor Spinning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xiakelor Spinning is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xiakelor Spinning vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Xiakelor Spinning needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Xiakelor Spinning has some of the most successful models in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Xiakelor Spinning should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Xiakelor Spinning products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Xiakelor Spinning needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xiakelor Spinning has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Xiakelor Spinning 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Xiakelor Spinning needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Xiakelor Spinning can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xiakelor Spinning is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Xiakelor Spinning has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Xiakelor Spinning strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Xiakelor Spinning 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.
High dependence on Xiakelor Spinning ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Xiakelor Spinning still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Xiakelor Spinning has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Xiakelor Spinning Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Xiakelor Spinning are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Xiakelor Spinning can develop new processes and procedures in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Xiakelor Spinning to increase its market reach. Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Xiakelor Spinning can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Xiakelor Spinning operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Xiakelor Spinning can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Xiakelor Spinning 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. Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Xiakelor Spinning has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Xiakelor Spinning 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Xiakelor Spinning can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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 Xiakelor Spinning 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xiakelor Spinning has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Xiakelor Spinning to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xiakelor Spinning to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Xiakelor Spinning in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Xiakelor Spinning can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Threats Xiakelor Spinning External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Xiakelor Spinning are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xiakelor Spinning 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Xiakelor Spinning 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 Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry regulations.
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 Xiakelor Spinning in the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning prominent markets.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing wage structure of Xiakelor Spinning
– 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 Xiakelor Spinning.
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. Xiakelor Spinning needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Xiakelor Spinning 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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xiakelor Spinning can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Xiakelor Spinning.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry are lowering. It can presents Xiakelor Spinning with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Xiakelor Spinning in Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber industry. The Chemicals - Plastics & Rubber 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xiakelor Spinning Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning 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 Xiakelor Spinning needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.