Taiyuan Chemical Industry (600281) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Oil & Gas Operations
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Taiyuan Chemical Industry (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Taiyuan Chemical Industry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Taiyuan Chemical Industry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Taiyuan Chemical Industry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Oil & Gas Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
Strengths of Taiyuan Chemical Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Taiyuan Chemical Industry are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Taiyuan Chemical Industry to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Oil & Gas Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Taiyuan Chemical Industry to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Oil & Gas Operations
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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)
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Taiyuan Chemical Industry staying ahead in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Training and development
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry has one of the best training and development program in Energy 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.
Digital Transformation in Oil & Gas Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Taiyuan Chemical Industry digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Taiyuan Chemical Industry in the Energy sector have low bargaining power. Taiyuan Chemical Industry has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Taiyuan Chemical Industry to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Oil & Gas Operations industry
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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
- Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Taiyuan Chemical Industry emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Oil & Gas Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Taiyuan Chemical Industry have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Taiyuan Chemical Industry does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Taiyuan Chemical Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Taiyuan Chemical Industry are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Taiyuan Chemical Industry is one of the leading players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Oil & Gas Operations industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Taiyuan Chemical Industry needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Oil & Gas Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Taiyuan Chemical Industry can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Taiyuan Chemical Industry is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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, Taiyuan Chemical Industry is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Taiyuan Chemical Industry to provide better information regarding Oil & Gas Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Taiyuan Chemical Industry products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Taiyuan Chemical Industry needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Taiyuan Chemical Industry strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Taiyuan Chemical Industry is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Oil & Gas Operations industry, but Taiyuan Chemical Industry needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Taiyuan Chemical Industry to focus more on services in the Oil & Gas Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry, in the dynamic environment of Oil & Gas Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Taiyuan Chemical Industry has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Taiyuan Chemical Industry is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Taiyuan Chemical Industry vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Taiyuan Chemical Industry, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Oil & Gas Operations industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Taiyuan Chemical Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Taiyuan Chemical Industry are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Oil & Gas Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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. Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Taiyuan Chemical Industry has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Oil & Gas Operations industry. This can help Taiyuan Chemical Industry to build a more holistic ecosystem for Taiyuan Chemical Industry products in the Oil & Gas Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry can develop new processes and procedures in Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Oil & Gas Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Taiyuan Chemical Industry to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Taiyuan Chemical Industry to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Loyalty marketing
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Taiyuan Chemical Industry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Taiyuan Chemical Industry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Taiyuan Chemical Industry is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Taiyuan Chemical Industry can utilize new technology in the field of Oil & Gas Operations industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Threats Taiyuan Chemical Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Taiyuan Chemical Industry are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Oil & Gas Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Taiyuan Chemical Industry with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Oil & Gas Operations sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Taiyuan Chemical Industry is facing in Oil & Gas Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry in the Oil & Gas Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Oil & Gas Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Taiyuan Chemical Industry can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Taiyuan Chemical Industry needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Oil & Gas Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Taiyuan Chemical Industry in Oil & Gas Operations industry. The Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Oil & Gas Operations industry.
Increasing wage structure of Taiyuan Chemical Industry
– 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry.
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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Taiyuan Chemical Industry may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Oil & Gas Operations 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Taiyuan Chemical Industry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry 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 Taiyuan Chemical Industry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
