SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Dongjiang Environmental (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Dongjiang Environmental is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Dongjiang Environmental
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Dongjiang Environmental can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Dongjiang Environmental, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Dongjiang Environmental
2. Improving business portfolio management of Dongjiang Environmental
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Waste Management Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Dongjiang Environmental
Strengths of Dongjiang Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Dongjiang Environmental are -
Ability to lead change in Waste Management Services
– Dongjiang Environmental is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Waste Management Services industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Dongjiang Environmental in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Dongjiang Environmental has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Waste Management Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Dongjiang Environmental have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Dongjiang Environmental in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Dongjiang Environmental has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Dongjiang Environmental to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Dongjiang Environmental has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Dongjiang Environmental to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Dongjiang Environmental in Waste Management Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Dongjiang Environmental is present in almost all the verticals within the Waste Management Services industry. This has provided Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Learning organization
- Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Dongjiang Environmental emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Waste Management Services industry
– Dongjiang Environmental has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Dongjiang Environmental to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Waste Management Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Dongjiang Environmental to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Dongjiang Environmental is one of the most innovative firm in Waste Management Services sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Dongjiang Environmental is one of the leading players in the Waste Management Services 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.
Weaknesses of Dongjiang Environmental | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Dongjiang Environmental are -
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 Dongjiang Environmental supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Dongjiang Environmental is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Dongjiang Environmental vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Dongjiang Environmental products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Dongjiang Environmental needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Dongjiang Environmental has high operating costs in the Waste Management Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Dongjiang Environmental lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Dongjiang Environmental, in the dynamic environment of Waste Management Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Dongjiang Environmental has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Dongjiang Environmental needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Waste Management Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Dongjiang Environmental can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Dongjiang Environmental is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Dongjiang Environmental has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Waste Management Services industry over the last five years. Dongjiang Environmental even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Employees’ less understanding of Dongjiang Environmental strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Dongjiang Environmental needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Dongjiang Environmental 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Waste Management Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Dongjiang Environmental 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Dongjiang Environmental 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 Waste Management Services industry using digital technology.
Dongjiang Environmental Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Dongjiang Environmental are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Waste Management Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Dongjiang Environmental 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. Dongjiang Environmental 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, Dongjiang Environmental 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.
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. Dongjiang Environmental can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Dongjiang Environmental can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Waste Management Services 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 Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Dongjiang Environmental 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 Waste Management Services industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Dongjiang Environmental can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Dongjiang Environmental operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Waste Management Services sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Waste Management Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Dongjiang Environmental in the Waste Management Services industry. Now Dongjiang Environmental can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Waste Management Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Dongjiang Environmental can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Dongjiang Environmental is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Dongjiang Environmental can utilize new technology in the field of Waste Management Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Dongjiang Environmental 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.
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 Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Dongjiang Environmental in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Waste Management Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Dongjiang Environmental External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Dongjiang Environmental are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Dongjiang Environmental has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Waste Management Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Dongjiang Environmental needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Waste Management Services 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.
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. Dongjiang Environmental 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Dongjiang Environmental may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Waste Management Services sector.
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.
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 Dongjiang Environmental business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Dongjiang Environmental 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.
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. Dongjiang Environmental needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Waste Management Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Dongjiang Environmental 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. Dongjiang Environmental can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Waste Management Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Waste Management Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Dongjiang Environmental can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Dongjiang Environmental in Waste Management Services industry. The Waste Management Services 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.
Increasing wage structure of Dongjiang Environmental
– 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 Dongjiang Environmental.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Waste Management Services industry are lowering. It can presents Dongjiang Environmental with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Waste Management Services sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Dongjiang Environmental Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental 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 Dongjiang Environmental needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.