SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for 99 Wuxian (Australia)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , 99 Wuxian is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that 99 Wuxian can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the 99 Wuxian, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of 99 Wuxian
2. Improving business portfolio management of 99 Wuxian
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Australia
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of 99 Wuxian
Strengths of 99 Wuxian | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of 99 Wuxian are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry
– 99 Wuxian has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled 99 Wuxian to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped 99 Wuxian to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– 99 Wuxian has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – 99 Wuxian staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– 99 Wuxian has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled 99 Wuxian to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Australia 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– 99 Wuxian has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of 99 Wuxian have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of 99 Wuxian comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.
Digital Transformation in Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For 99 Wuxian digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. 99 Wuxian 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– 99 Wuxian is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided 99 Wuxian 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– 99 Wuxian is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of 99 Wuxian in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– 99 Wuxian 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.
Weaknesses of 99 Wuxian | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of 99 Wuxian are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, 99 Wuxian 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Australia, 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of 99 Wuxian is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but 99 Wuxian needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help 99 Wuxian to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on 99 Wuxian ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of 99 Wuxian still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though 99 Wuxian has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, 99 Wuxian has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. 99 Wuxian 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of 99 Wuxian is just above the Business Services industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that 99 Wuxian needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at 99 Wuxian can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as 99 Wuxian is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of 99 Wuxian strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of 99 Wuxian 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, 99 Wuxian is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help 99 Wuxian to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Australia, 99 Wuxian needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As 99 Wuxian is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
99 Wuxian Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of 99 Wuxian are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for 99 Wuxian in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for 99 Wuxian 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– 99 Wuxian has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled 99 Wuxian to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help 99 Wuxian to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. 99 Wuxian can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, 99 Wuxian can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that 99 Wuxian operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects 99 Wuxian can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, 99 Wuxian 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.
Loyalty marketing
– 99 Wuxian 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, 99 Wuxian is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. 99 Wuxian can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 99 Wuxian 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– 99 Wuxian 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.
Threats 99 Wuxian External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of 99 Wuxian are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– 99 Wuxian 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, 99 Wuxian may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– 99 Wuxian 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 Business Services 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.
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. 99 Wuxian needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– 99 Wuxian has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, 99 Wuxian needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business Services sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
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 99 Wuxian.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that 99 Wuxian is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for 99 Wuxian in Business Services industry. The Business Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of 99 Wuxian Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian 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 99 Wuxian needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
