SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Zhaobangji Properties (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Zhaobangji Properties is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Zhaobangji Properties
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Zhaobangji Properties can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Zhaobangji Properties, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Zhaobangji Properties
2. Improving business portfolio management of Zhaobangji Properties
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 Zhaobangji Properties
Strengths of Zhaobangji Properties | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Zhaobangji Properties are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Zhaobangji Properties has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Zhaobangji Properties has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Rental & Leasing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Zhaobangji Properties digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Organizational Resilience of Zhaobangji Properties
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Zhaobangji Properties does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Rental & Leasing industry
– Zhaobangji Properties is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Learning organization
- Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Zhaobangji Properties emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Zhaobangji Properties is present in almost all the verticals within the Rental & Leasing industry. This has provided Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Analytics focus
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Zhaobangji Properties comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Rental & Leasing 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Zhaobangji Properties has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Zhaobangji Properties are -
Employees’ less understanding of Zhaobangji Properties strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Zhaobangji Properties, in the dynamic environment of Rental & Leasing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Zhaobangji Properties has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Zhaobangji Properties is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Zhaobangji Properties 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 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 Zhaobangji Properties supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Zhaobangji Properties is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Zhaobangji Properties vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on Zhaobangji Properties ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Zhaobangji Properties is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Rental & Leasing industry, Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Zhaobangji Properties 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 Rental & Leasing industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Zhaobangji Properties products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Zhaobangji Properties needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Zhaobangji Properties Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Zhaobangji Properties are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Zhaobangji Properties has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Rental & Leasing industry. This can help Zhaobangji Properties to build a more holistic ecosystem for Zhaobangji Properties products in the Rental & Leasing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Zhaobangji Properties 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 Rental & Leasing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Zhaobangji Properties in the Rental & Leasing industry. Now Zhaobangji Properties can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Zhaobangji Properties is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Zhaobangji Properties 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
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Zhaobangji Properties in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Rental & Leasing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Zhaobangji Properties can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Threats Zhaobangji Properties External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Zhaobangji Properties are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Zhaobangji Properties 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 Rental & Leasing industry.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Zhaobangji Properties
– 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 Zhaobangji Properties.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Zhaobangji Properties 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.
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 Zhaobangji Properties in the Rental & Leasing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Zhaobangji Properties 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
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. Zhaobangji Properties needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Rental & Leasing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Zhaobangji Properties 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 Rental & Leasing industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Zhaobangji Properties 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.
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 Zhaobangji Properties business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Rental & Leasing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Zhaobangji Properties can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhaobangji Properties Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties 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 Zhaobangji Properties needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.