Shenzhen Int Hlds (152) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shenzhen Int Hlds (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shenzhen Int Hlds is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shenzhen Int Hlds

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shenzhen Int Hlds can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shenzhen Int Hlds, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Shenzhen Int Hlds can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shenzhen Int Hlds
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shenzhen Int Hlds
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 Shenzhen Int Hlds

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Strengths of Shenzhen Int Hlds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Shenzhen Int Hlds are -

Analytics focus

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Shenzhen Int Hlds 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

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

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Learning organization

- Shenzhen Int Hlds 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 Shenzhen Int Hlds is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shenzhen Int Hlds emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Shenzhen Int Hlds is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Shenzhen Int Hlds has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

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

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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 Misc. Transportation industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shenzhen Int Hlds digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Shenzhen Int Hlds are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.

Superior customer experience

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

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Weaknesses of Shenzhen Int Hlds | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Shenzhen Int Hlds are -

Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Shenzhen Int Hlds products

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

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Shenzhen Int Hlds 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Int Hlds needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Shenzhen Int Hlds 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 Shenzhen Int Hlds can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shenzhen Int Hlds is planning to shift buying processes online.

Need for greater diversity

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

Products dominated business model

– Even though Shenzhen Int Hlds has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shenzhen Int Hlds should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

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 Shenzhen Int Hlds supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shenzhen Int Hlds is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shenzhen Int Hlds vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

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Shenzhen Int Hlds Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Shenzhen Int Hlds are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shenzhen Int Hlds to increase its market reach. Shenzhen Int Hlds will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shenzhen Int Hlds can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

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. Shenzhen Int Hlds 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. Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

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. Shenzhen Int Hlds can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

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 Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

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. Shenzhen Int Hlds can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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 Shenzhen Int Hlds in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now Shenzhen Int Hlds can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Shenzhen Int Hlds has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shenzhen Int Hlds to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shenzhen Int Hlds to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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Threats Shenzhen Int Hlds External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Shenzhen Int Hlds are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Shenzhen Int Hlds is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 Shenzhen Int Hlds business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Regulatory challenges

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Environmental challenges

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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. Shenzhen Int Hlds can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Shenzhen Int Hlds has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

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. Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Shenzhen Int Hlds 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 Misc. Transportation industry.

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. Shenzhen Int Hlds needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Shenzhen Int Hlds 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Shenzhen Int Hlds in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shenzhen Int Hlds Template, Example

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

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