SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Guangzhou Amsky Tech (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guangzhou Amsky Tech is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guangzhou Amsky Tech
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guangzhou Amsky Tech can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guangzhou Amsky Tech, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guangzhou Amsky Tech
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guangzhou Amsky Tech
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Computer Peripherals sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guangzhou Amsky Tech
Strengths of Guangzhou Amsky Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guangzhou Amsky Tech are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Peripherals industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Guangzhou Amsky Tech have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Computer Peripherals
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech is one of the leading players in the Computer Peripherals industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Peripherals industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guangzhou Amsky Tech in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Guangzhou Amsky Tech in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Guangzhou Amsky Tech has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Guangzhou Amsky Tech to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
High brand equity
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Guangzhou Amsky Tech to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Peripherals industry. This has provided Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Guangzhou Amsky Tech comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Computer Peripherals 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.
Analytics focus
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guangzhou Amsky Tech staying ahead in the Computer Peripherals industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Computer Peripherals industry
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guangzhou Amsky Tech to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Computer Peripherals industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guangzhou Amsky Tech to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Computer Peripherals industry
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Guangzhou Amsky Tech | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guangzhou Amsky Tech are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guangzhou Amsky Tech is one of the leading players in the Computer Peripherals industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Computer Peripherals industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Computer Peripherals industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Peripherals industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in China, Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guangzhou Amsky Tech has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Computer Peripherals industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Guangzhou Amsky Tech is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Computer Peripherals industry, but Guangzhou Amsky Tech needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Guangzhou Amsky Tech to focus more on services in the Computer Peripherals industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Guangzhou Amsky Tech has high operating costs in the Computer Peripherals industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Guangzhou Amsky Tech lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Peripherals industry, Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Guangzhou Amsky Tech has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Computer Peripherals industry over the last five years. Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
High dependence on Guangzhou Amsky Tech ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guangzhou Amsky Tech still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Computer Peripherals industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guangzhou Amsky Tech has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Guangzhou Amsky Tech Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guangzhou Amsky Tech are -
Buying journey improvements
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer Peripherals 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.
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. Guangzhou Amsky Tech can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Computer Peripherals industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Guangzhou Amsky Tech in the Computer Peripherals industry. Now Guangzhou Amsky Tech can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Guangzhou Amsky Tech is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guangzhou Amsky Tech can utilize new technology in the field of Computer Peripherals industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guangzhou Amsky Tech to increase its market reach. Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guangzhou Amsky Tech in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Computer Peripherals industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Guangzhou Amsky Tech can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Guangzhou Amsky Tech can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guangzhou Amsky Tech operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Peripherals sector.
Threats Guangzhou Amsky Tech External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guangzhou Amsky Tech are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Peripherals industry are lowering. It can presents Guangzhou Amsky Tech with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Peripherals sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals 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. Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Peripherals industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guangzhou Amsky Tech needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Peripherals 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.
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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals industry.
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.
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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Guangzhou Amsky Tech may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Computer Peripherals sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Computer Peripherals industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guangzhou Amsky Tech Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech 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 Guangzhou Amsky Tech needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.