Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices,
geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Iron & Steel sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope
Strengths of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Iron & Steel 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
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Iron & Steel industry
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Iron & Steel industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Iron & Steel industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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.
Learning organization
- Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Iron & Steel industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope staying ahead in the Iron & Steel industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Organizational Resilience of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is one of the most innovative firm in Iron & Steel sector.
High brand equity
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to lead change in Iron & Steel
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is one of the leading players in the Iron & Steel industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Iron & Steel industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to provide better information regarding Iron & Steel products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Iron & Steel industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Iron & Steel industry over the last five years. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is just above the Iron & Steel 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Iron & Steel industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Iron & Steel industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Iron & Steel industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Iron & Steel 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Iron & Steel industry, but Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to focus more on services in the Iron & Steel industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Iron & Steel industry, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has high operating costs in the Iron & Steel industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope lucrative customers.
Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope are -
Buying journey improvements
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Iron & Steel 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Iron & Steel sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to increase its market reach. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Iron & Steel industry. This can help Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope products in the Iron & Steel industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can develop new processes and procedures in Iron & Steel 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Iron & Steel industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can utilize new technology in the field of Iron & Steel industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Iron & Steel industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Iron & Steel sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Iron & Steel industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope in the Iron & Steel industry. Now Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Iron & Steel sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope is facing in Iron & Steel sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Iron & Steel industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Iron & Steel industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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.
Environmental challenges
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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. Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Iron & Steel industry.
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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope in Iron & Steel industry. The Iron & Steel 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Iron & Steel industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Iron & Steel 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Iron & Steel industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope 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 Jiangsu Safety Wire Rope needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.