Grand Baoxin Auto (1293) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Specialty)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Grand Baoxin Auto (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Grand Baoxin Auto is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Grand Baoxin Auto
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Grand Baoxin Auto can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Grand Baoxin Auto, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Grand Baoxin Auto
2. Improving business portfolio management of Grand Baoxin Auto
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Grand Baoxin Auto
Strengths of Grand Baoxin Auto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Grand Baoxin Auto are -
Innovation driven organization
– Grand Baoxin Auto is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Grand Baoxin Auto in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Grand Baoxin Auto has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Specialty) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Grand Baoxin Auto have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Grand Baoxin Auto emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)
– Grand Baoxin Auto is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Grand Baoxin Auto in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Retail (Specialty) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Grand Baoxin Auto has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Grand Baoxin Auto staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Grand Baoxin Auto is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Specialty) industry. This has provided Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Grand Baoxin Auto has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
High brand equity
– Grand Baoxin Auto has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Grand Baoxin Auto to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Grand Baoxin Auto
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Grand Baoxin Auto does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Grand Baoxin Auto | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Grand Baoxin Auto are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Grand Baoxin Auto needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Grand Baoxin Auto needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Grand Baoxin Auto can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Grand Baoxin Auto is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Grand Baoxin Auto is just above the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Grand Baoxin Auto has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Grand Baoxin Auto is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Grand Baoxin Auto to provide better information regarding Retail (Specialty) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Grand Baoxin Auto ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Grand Baoxin Auto still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Specialty) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Grand Baoxin Auto has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Grand Baoxin Auto supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Grand Baoxin Auto is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Grand Baoxin Auto vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Grand Baoxin Auto has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Grand Baoxin Auto needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Grand Baoxin Auto, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Specialty) 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Grand Baoxin Auto is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry in last five years.
Grand Baoxin Auto Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Grand Baoxin Auto are -
Manufacturing automation
– Grand Baoxin Auto can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Grand Baoxin Auto has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Grand Baoxin Auto to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Grand Baoxin Auto 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, Grand Baoxin Auto is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Grand Baoxin Auto can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Grand Baoxin Auto in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Grand Baoxin Auto can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Specialty) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Grand Baoxin Auto can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Specialty) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Grand Baoxin Auto 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. Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Grand Baoxin Auto can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Grand Baoxin Auto operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Specialty) sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Grand Baoxin Auto in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Grand Baoxin Auto can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Loyalty marketing
– Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Grand Baoxin Auto are -
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Grand Baoxin Auto can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing wage structure of Grand Baoxin Auto
– 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 Grand Baoxin Auto.
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 Grand Baoxin Auto.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.
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. Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
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 Grand Baoxin Auto in the Retail (Specialty) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Grand Baoxin Auto 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Grand Baoxin Auto in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Grand Baoxin Auto is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Grand Baoxin Auto business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Grand Baoxin Auto needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Grand Baoxin Auto Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto 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 Grand Baoxin Auto needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
