SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Xinjiang Tianshun Supply (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption,
there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Xinjiang Tianshun Supply, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply
2. Improving business portfolio management of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply
Strengths of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Trucking 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Analytics focus
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Trucking 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
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Trucking industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Xinjiang Tianshun Supply digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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
- Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Xinjiang Tianshun Supply emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is present in almost all the verticals within the Trucking industry. This has provided Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Xinjiang Tianshun Supply staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply are -
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but Xinjiang Tianshun Supply needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Xinjiang Tianshun Supply vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Trucking 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.
High dependence on Xinjiang Tianshun Supply ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Trucking industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Trucking industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is just above the Trucking 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has high operating costs in the Trucking industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Xinjiang Tianshun Supply lucrative customers.
Xinjiang Tianshun Supply Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Trucking industry. This can help Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to build a more holistic ecosystem for Xinjiang Tianshun Supply products in the Trucking industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Trucking industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Xinjiang Tianshun Supply operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Trucking industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Xinjiang Tianshun Supply in the Trucking industry. Now Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Xinjiang Tianshun Supply to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Xinjiang Tianshun Supply External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Trucking industry.
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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Xinjiang Tianshun Supply may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Trucking sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Trucking industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Trucking industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Trucking industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Xinjiang Tianshun Supply is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Xinjiang Tianshun Supply Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply 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 Xinjiang Tianshun Supply needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
