SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Goodbaby Intl (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Goodbaby Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Goodbaby Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Goodbaby Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Goodbaby Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Goodbaby Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Recreational Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Goodbaby Intl
Strengths of Goodbaby Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Goodbaby Intl are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Goodbaby Intl has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Goodbaby Intl 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry
– Goodbaby Intl has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Goodbaby Intl to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Goodbaby Intl to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Goodbaby Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Goodbaby Intl staying ahead in the Recreational Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Goodbaby Intl is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products 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.
Analytics focus
– Goodbaby Intl 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 Recreational Products 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Goodbaby Intl comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Products 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.
Ability to lead change in Recreational Products
– Goodbaby Intl is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Recreational Products industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Goodbaby Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Goodbaby Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Recreational Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Goodbaby Intl digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Goodbaby Intl 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Products industry
– Goodbaby Intl is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Goodbaby Intl 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Goodbaby Intl in Recreational Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Goodbaby Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Goodbaby Intl are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Goodbaby Intl needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Goodbaby Intl, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Goodbaby Intl has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Recreational Products industry, Goodbaby Intl 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Goodbaby Intl has high operating costs in the Recreational Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Goodbaby Intl lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Goodbaby Intl 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Goodbaby Intl, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Products 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Goodbaby Intl is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Recreational Products industry, but Goodbaby Intl needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Goodbaby Intl to focus more on services in the Recreational Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Goodbaby Intl 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 Recreational Products industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Goodbaby Intl is one of the leading players in the Recreational Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Products industry in last five years.
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 Goodbaby Intl supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Goodbaby Intl is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Goodbaby Intl vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Lack of clear differentiation of Goodbaby Intl products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Goodbaby Intl needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Goodbaby Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Goodbaby Intl are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Goodbaby Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Recreational Products industry. This can help Goodbaby Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Goodbaby Intl products in the Recreational Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Goodbaby Intl to increase its market reach. Goodbaby Intl will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Developing new processes and practices
– Goodbaby Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Recreational Products 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Goodbaby Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Products 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Goodbaby Intl 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Goodbaby Intl in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Recreational Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. Goodbaby Intl can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Goodbaby Intl 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Goodbaby Intl 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.
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 Goodbaby Intl 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Goodbaby Intl can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Goodbaby Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Goodbaby Intl are -
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 Goodbaby Intl in the Recreational Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Goodbaby Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Goodbaby Intl 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. Goodbaby Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Products industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Goodbaby Intl in Recreational Products industry. The Recreational Products 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, Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Goodbaby Intl may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Recreational Products sector.
Increasing wage structure of Goodbaby Intl
– 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 Goodbaby Intl.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Products industry are lowering. It can presents Goodbaby Intl with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Products sector.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Goodbaby Intl 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Goodbaby Intl can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Goodbaby Intl 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 Recreational Products industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl 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 Goodbaby Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.