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 government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, 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 -
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Echom Sci&Tech A is one of the most innovative firm in Investment Services sector.
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.
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.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Echom Sci&Tech A has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Echom Sci&Tech A staying ahead in the Investment Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Echom Sci&Tech A in Investment Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Echom Sci&Tech A is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Echom Sci&Tech A to provide better information regarding Investment Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Echom Sci&Tech A has high operating costs in the Investment Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Echom Sci&Tech A lucrative customers.
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.
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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Echom Sci&Tech A has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Echom Sci&Tech A is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Echom Sci&Tech A can utilize new technology in the field of Investment Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Echom Sci&Tech A in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Investment Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Echom Sci&Tech A 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 Echom Sci&Tech A to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Echom Sci&Tech A may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Investment Services sector.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Echom Sci&Tech A needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Investment Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
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.
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.