China Mer Hold (144) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for China Mer Hold (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , China Mer Hold is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of China Mer Hold

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that China Mer Hold can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the China Mer Hold, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of China Mer Hold
2. Improving business portfolio management of China Mer Hold
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of China Mer Hold

---

Strengths of China Mer Hold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of China Mer Hold are -

High brand equity

– China Mer Hold has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled China Mer Hold to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Analytics focus

– China Mer Hold 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 Misc. Transportation industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong 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.

Learning organization

- China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at China Mer Hold emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Misc. Transportation

– China Mer Hold is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Transportation industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled China Mer Hold in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of China Mer Hold comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of China Mer Hold in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– China Mer Hold has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – China Mer Hold staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Ability to recruit top talent

– China Mer Hold is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry

– China Mer Hold has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled China Mer Hold to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped China Mer Hold to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Diverse revenue streams

– China Mer Hold is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided China Mer Hold 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry

– China Mer Hold is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of China Mer Hold in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. China Mer Hold has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps China Mer Hold to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

---

---

Weaknesses of China Mer Hold | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of China Mer Hold are -

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, China Mer Hold 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, China Mer Hold is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help China Mer Hold to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of China Mer Hold, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Transportation 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.

Employees’ less understanding of China Mer Hold strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of China Mer Hold 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, China Mer Hold has high operating costs in the Misc. Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract China Mer Hold lucrative customers.

Lack of clear differentiation of China Mer Hold products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, China Mer Hold needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at China Mer Hold, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. China Mer Hold has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As China Mer Hold is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.

High dependence on China Mer Hold ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of China Mer Hold still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though China Mer Hold has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Need for greater diversity

– China Mer Hold 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that China Mer Hold needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at China Mer Hold can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as China Mer Hold is planning to shift buying processes online.

---

China Mer Hold Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of China Mer Hold are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– China Mer Hold 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.

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 China Mer Hold 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for China Mer Hold in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now China Mer Hold can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. China Mer Hold 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. China Mer Hold 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, China Mer Hold can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that China Mer Hold operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Buying journey improvements

– China Mer Hold can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Transportation 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.

Loyalty marketing

– China Mer Hold 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help China Mer Hold to increase its market reach. China Mer Hold 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. China Mer Hold can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of China Mer Hold has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help China Mer Hold to build a more holistic ecosystem for China Mer Hold products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, China Mer Hold is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. China Mer Hold can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Transportation 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 China Mer Hold 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.

---

Threats China Mer Hold External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of China Mer Hold are -

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.

Increasing wage structure of China Mer Hold

– 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 China Mer Hold.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for China Mer Hold in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.

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 China Mer Hold in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Regulatory challenges

– China Mer Hold 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. China Mer Hold can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents China Mer Hold with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.

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 China Mer Hold.

Environmental challenges

– China Mer Hold 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. China Mer Hold can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on China Mer Hold 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, China Mer Hold may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– China Mer Hold has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, China Mer Hold needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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 China Mer Hold Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold 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 China Mer Hold needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---