Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cosco Shipping Develop is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cosco Shipping Develop
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cosco Shipping Develop can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cosco Shipping Develop, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cosco Shipping Develop
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cosco Shipping Develop
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Rental & Leasing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cosco Shipping Develop
Strengths of Cosco Shipping Develop | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cosco Shipping Develop are -
Digital Transformation in Rental & Leasing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cosco Shipping Develop digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Cosco Shipping Develop is one of the most innovative firm in Rental & Leasing sector.
Analytics focus
– Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Rental & Leasing 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cosco Shipping Develop is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Ability to lead change in Rental & Leasing
– Cosco Shipping Develop is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Rental & Leasing industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Cosco Shipping Develop in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Cosco Shipping Develop has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Rental & Leasing industry
– Cosco Shipping Develop is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cosco Shipping Develop is present in almost all the verticals within the Rental & Leasing industry. This has provided Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cosco Shipping Develop
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cosco Shipping Develop does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cosco Shipping Develop has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cosco Shipping Develop staying ahead in the Rental & Leasing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Cosco Shipping Develop | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cosco Shipping Develop are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cosco Shipping Develop has some of the most successful models in the Rental & Leasing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Cosco Shipping Develop should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cosco Shipping Develop is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cosco Shipping Develop to provide better information regarding Rental & Leasing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Cosco Shipping Develop has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Rental & Leasing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Cosco Shipping Develop is just above the Rental & Leasing 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Rental & Leasing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cosco Shipping Develop needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Rental & Leasing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cosco Shipping Develop can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cosco Shipping Develop is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Cosco Shipping Develop needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Cosco Shipping Develop has high operating costs in the Rental & Leasing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cosco Shipping Develop lucrative customers.
High dependence on Cosco Shipping Develop ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cosco Shipping Develop still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Rental & Leasing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cosco Shipping Develop has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cosco Shipping Develop is one of the leading players in the Rental & Leasing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Rental & Leasing industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Cosco Shipping Develop strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Cosco Shipping Develop Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cosco Shipping Develop are -
Manufacturing automation
– Cosco Shipping Develop can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Rental & Leasing sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cosco Shipping Develop to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cosco Shipping Develop has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Rental & Leasing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cosco Shipping Develop to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cosco Shipping Develop to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cosco Shipping Develop is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cosco Shipping Develop can utilize new technology in the field of Rental & Leasing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Cosco Shipping Develop can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Rental & Leasing industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cosco Shipping Develop can develop new processes and procedures in Rental & Leasing 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Cosco Shipping Develop can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cosco Shipping Develop operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Rental & Leasing sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Rental & Leasing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cosco Shipping Develop in the Rental & Leasing industry. Now Cosco Shipping Develop can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Rental & Leasing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cosco Shipping Develop can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Cosco Shipping Develop can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Cosco Shipping Develop External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cosco Shipping Develop are -
Regulatory challenges
– Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Rental & Leasing industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cosco Shipping Develop has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Rental & Leasing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cosco Shipping Develop needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Rental & Leasing 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.
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.
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 Cosco Shipping Develop in the Rental & Leasing 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 Cosco Shipping Develop business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Cosco Shipping Develop
– 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 Cosco Shipping Develop.
Environmental challenges
– Cosco Shipping Develop 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. Cosco Shipping Develop can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Rental & Leasing industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cosco Shipping Develop in Rental & Leasing industry. The Rental & Leasing 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.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop prominent markets.
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 Cosco Shipping Develop.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cosco Shipping Develop may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Rental & Leasing sector.
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. Cosco Shipping Develop 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cosco Shipping Develop Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop 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 Cosco Shipping Develop needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.