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 – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, 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.
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.
Organizational Resilience of Echom Sci&Tech A
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Echom Sci&Tech A does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
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.
Training and development
– Echom Sci&Tech A has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
Ability to lead change in Investment Services
– Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the leading players in the Investment Services industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Investment Services industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Echom Sci&Tech A in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Echom Sci&Tech A has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Investment Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Echom Sci&Tech A have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
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 -
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Echom Sci&Tech A is just above the Investment 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.
Skills based hiring in Investment Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of China, Echom Sci&Tech A needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Echom Sci&Tech A, in the dynamic environment of Investment Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Echom Sci&Tech A has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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.
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.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Echom Sci&Tech A has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
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.
Buying journey improvements
– Echom Sci&Tech A can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Investment Services 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Investment Services industry.
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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Investment Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Echom Sci&Tech A 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. Echom Sci&Tech A 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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Investment Services industry are lowering. It can presents Echom Sci&Tech A with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Investment Services sector.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Echom Sci&Tech A is facing in Investment 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Echom Sci&Tech A
– 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 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.
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.
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.