Echom Sci&Tech A (2420) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Investment Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Echom Sci&Tech A (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Echom Sci&Tech A is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Echom Sci&Tech A can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Echom Sci&Tech A, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Echom Sci&Tech A
2. Improving business portfolio management of Echom Sci&Tech A
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Investment Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Echom Sci&Tech A
Strengths of Echom Sci&Tech A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Echom Sci&Tech A are -
Digital Transformation in Investment Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Echom Sci&Tech A digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Echom Sci&Tech A 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
- Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Echom Sci&Tech A emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Echom Sci&Tech A comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Investment 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the leading players in the Investment Services 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.
High brand equity
– Echom Sci&Tech A has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Echom Sci&Tech A to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Analytics focus
– Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Investment Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Echom Sci&Tech A is present in almost all the verticals within the Investment Services industry. This has provided Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Echom Sci&Tech A in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Echom Sci&Tech A has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Echom Sci&Tech A to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Investment Services industry
– Echom Sci&Tech A is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Investment Services industry
– Echom Sci&Tech A has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Echom Sci&Tech A to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Investment Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Echom Sci&Tech A to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Echom Sci&Tech A | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Echom Sci&Tech A are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Echom Sci&Tech A, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Investment Services 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Investment Services industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Investment Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Investment Services industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Echom Sci&Tech A products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Echom Sci&Tech A needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Echom Sci&Tech A strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Investment Services industry, Echom Sci&Tech A 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Echom Sci&Tech A has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Investment Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Echom Sci&Tech A needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Investment Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Echom Sci&Tech A can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Echom Sci&Tech A is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Echom Sci&Tech A has some of the most successful models in the Investment Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Echom Sci&Tech A should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Echom Sci&Tech A has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Investment Services industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Echom Sci&Tech A is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Investment Services industry, but Echom Sci&Tech A needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Echom Sci&Tech A to focus more on services in the Investment Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Echom Sci&Tech A Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Echom Sci&Tech A are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Echom Sci&Tech A can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Echom Sci&Tech A operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Investment Services sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Investment Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Echom Sci&Tech A can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Echom Sci&Tech A can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Echom Sci&Tech A has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Investment Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Echom Sci&Tech A to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A to increase its market reach. Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Echom Sci&Tech A can develop new processes and procedures in Investment Services 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Echom Sci&Tech A can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Investment Services 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.
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. Echom Sci&Tech A can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Echom Sci&Tech A has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Investment Services industry. This can help Echom Sci&Tech A to build a more holistic ecosystem for Echom Sci&Tech A products in the Investment Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Echom Sci&Tech A External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Echom Sci&Tech A are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Echom Sci&Tech A has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Investment Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Echom Sci&Tech A needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Investment 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.
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.
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 Echom Sci&Tech A in the Investment Services sector and impact the bottomline 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 Echom Sci&Tech A in Investment Services industry. The Investment 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.
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 Echom Sci&Tech A business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Investment Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Echom Sci&Tech A can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Echom Sci&Tech A.
Environmental challenges
– Echom Sci&Tech A 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. Echom Sci&Tech A can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Investment Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Investment Services industry and other sectors.
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. Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Echom Sci&Tech A Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
