Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities (1635) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Natural Gas Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Natural Gas Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities
Strengths of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is one of the most innovative firm in Natural Gas Utilities sector.
High brand equity
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Natural Gas Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is present in almost all the verticals within the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This has provided Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.
Analytics focus
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities 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
- Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Natural Gas Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is just above the Natural Gas Utilities 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 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities, in the dynamic environment of Natural Gas Utilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has some of the most successful models in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities are -
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. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can utilize new technology in the field of Natural Gas Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities can develop new processes and procedures in Natural Gas Utilities industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Natural Gas Utilities industry. This can help Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Natural Gas Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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.
Threats Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry regulations.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Increasing wage structure of Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities
– 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities.
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.
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. Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Natural Gas Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities in Natural Gas Utilities industry. The Natural Gas Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities in the Natural Gas Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities 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 Shanghai DaZhong Public Utilities needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.