SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xiamen Savings Environmental (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xiamen Savings Environmental is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing,
there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xiamen Savings Environmental
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xiamen Savings Environmental can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xiamen Savings Environmental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xiamen Savings Environmental
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xiamen Savings Environmental
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 Xiamen Savings Environmental
Strengths of Xiamen Savings Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xiamen Savings Environmental are -
Organizational Resilience of Xiamen Savings Environmental
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Xiamen Savings Environmental does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xiamen Savings Environmental emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Xiamen Savings Environmental in Misc. Capital Goods industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Xiamen Savings Environmental is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
High brand equity
– Xiamen Savings Environmental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Xiamen Savings Environmental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Xiamen Savings Environmental 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
– Xiamen Savings Environmental has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Xiamen Savings Environmental to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Xiamen Savings Environmental to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Training and development
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Xiamen Savings Environmental comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Xiamen Savings Environmental in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Xiamen Savings Environmental has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Xiamen Savings Environmental to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Xiamen Savings Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xiamen Savings Environmental are -
Skills based hiring in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Xiamen Savings Environmental has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Xiamen Savings Environmental should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Xiamen Savings Environmental is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xiamen Savings Environmental is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Xiamen Savings Environmental, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Xiamen Savings Environmental has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Xiamen Savings Environmental is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, but Xiamen Savings Environmental needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Xiamen Savings Environmental to focus more on services in the Misc. Capital Goods industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
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 Xiamen Savings Environmental supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xiamen Savings Environmental is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xiamen Savings Environmental vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Xiamen Savings Environmental 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. Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Xiamen Savings Environmental strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Xiamen Savings Environmental needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Xiamen Savings Environmental Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Xiamen Savings Environmental are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Xiamen Savings Environmental can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Xiamen Savings Environmental in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Xiamen Savings Environmental can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xiamen Savings Environmental has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Xiamen Savings Environmental to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xiamen Savings Environmental to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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, Xiamen Savings Environmental is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
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. Xiamen Savings Environmental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Xiamen Savings Environmental can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Xiamen Savings Environmental External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Xiamen Savings Environmental are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Xiamen Savings Environmental is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Xiamen Savings Environmental business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xiamen Savings Environmental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Xiamen Savings Environmental in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Xiamen Savings Environmental needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Xiamen Savings Environmental.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Capital Goods industry are lowering. It can presents Xiamen Savings Environmental 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
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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. Xiamen Savings Environmental can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Xiamen Savings Environmental 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xiamen Savings Environmental Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental 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 Xiamen Savings Environmental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.