SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shandong Astro-century Education (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shandong Astro-century Education is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shandong Astro-century Education
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shandong Astro-century Education can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shandong Astro-century Education, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shandong Astro-century Education
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shandong Astro-century Education
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shandong Astro-century Education
Strengths of Shandong Astro-century Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shandong Astro-century Education are -
Training and development
– Shandong Astro-century Education has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shandong Astro-century Education is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shandong Astro-century Education has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shandong Astro-century Education staying ahead in the Printing & Publishing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Printing & Publishing
– Shandong Astro-century Education is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing & Publishing industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Shandong Astro-century Education in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shandong Astro-century Education has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shandong Astro-century Education has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Analytics focus
– Shandong Astro-century Education 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 & Publishing 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shandong Astro-century Education in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Shandong Astro-century Education has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shandong Astro-century Education to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Shandong Astro-century Education is one of the most innovative firm in Printing & Publishing sector.
High brand equity
– Shandong Astro-century Education has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shandong Astro-century Education to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shandong Astro-century Education is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing & Publishing industry
– Shandong Astro-century Education has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shandong Astro-century Education to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shandong Astro-century Education to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Shandong Astro-century Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shandong Astro-century Education are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shandong Astro-century Education has high operating costs in the Printing & Publishing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shandong Astro-century Education lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shandong Astro-century Education is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing & Publishing industry, but Shandong Astro-century Education needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shandong Astro-century Education to focus more on services in the Printing & Publishing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Shandong Astro-century Education, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing & Publishing 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shandong Astro-century Education needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing & Publishing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shandong Astro-century Education can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shandong Astro-century Education is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shandong Astro-century Education products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shandong Astro-century Education needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shandong Astro-century Education has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Printing & Publishing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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 Shandong Astro-century Education supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shandong Astro-century Education is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shandong Astro-century Education vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shandong Astro-century Education has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry over the last five years. Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Skills based hiring in Printing & Publishing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shandong Astro-century Education is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shandong Astro-century Education to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shandong Astro-century Education has some of the most successful models in the Printing & Publishing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shandong Astro-century Education should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Shandong Astro-century Education Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shandong Astro-century Education are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shandong Astro-century Education has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing & Publishing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shandong Astro-century Education to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shandong Astro-century Education to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing & Publishing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shandong Astro-century Education 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. Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing & Publishing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shandong Astro-century Education can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shandong Astro-century Education to increase its market reach. Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shandong Astro-century Education can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Shandong Astro-century Education can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shandong Astro-century Education can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shandong Astro-century Education operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
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 Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shandong Astro-century Education 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Shandong Astro-century Education can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Printing & Publishing 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 Shandong Astro-century Education External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shandong Astro-century Education are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Printing & Publishing industry and other sectors.
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. Shandong Astro-century Education needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing & Publishing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Shandong Astro-century Education in the Printing & Publishing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Shandong Astro-century Education 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 & Publishing industry regulations.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shandong Astro-century Education 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 & Publishing sector.
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 Shandong Astro-century Education.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Shandong Astro-century Education with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.
Increasing wage structure of Shandong Astro-century Education
– 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 Shandong Astro-century Education.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Shandong Astro-century Education 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. Shandong Astro-century Education can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shandong Astro-century Education is facing in Printing & Publishing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shandong Astro-century Education Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education 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 Shandong Astro-century Education needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.