×




Esprit Holdings (330) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Esprit Holdings (Hong Kong)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Esprit Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc



12 Hrs

$59.99
per Page
  • 100% Plagiarism Free
  • On Time Delivery | 27x7
  • PayPal Secure
  • 300 Words / Page
  • Buy Now

24 Hrs

$49.99
per Page
  • 100% Plagiarism Free
  • On Time Delivery | 27x7
  • PayPal Secure
  • 300 Words / Page
  • Buy Now

48 Hrs

$39.99
per Page
  • 100% Plagiarism Free
  • On Time Delivery | 27x7
  • PayPal Secure
  • 300 Words / Page
  • Buy Now







Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Esprit Holdings


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Esprit Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Esprit Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Esprit Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Esprit Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Apparel) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Esprit Holdings




Strengths of Esprit Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Esprit Holdings are -

Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Apparel) industry

– Esprit Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Esprit Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Esprit Holdings staying ahead in the Retail (Apparel) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Esprit Holdings in Retail (Apparel) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Esprit Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Apparel) industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Esprit Holdings has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.

Ability to lead change in Retail (Apparel)

– Esprit Holdings is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Esprit Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Esprit Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Apparel) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Esprit Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Esprit Holdings 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.

High brand equity

– Esprit Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Esprit Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Training and development

– Esprit Holdings 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Esprit Holdings in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Esprit Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Esprit Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Analytics focus

– Esprit Holdings 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 (Apparel) 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.






Weaknesses of Esprit Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Esprit Holdings are -

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Esprit Holdings is just above the Retail (Apparel) 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.

Skills based hiring in Retail (Apparel) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Esprit Holdings has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Esprit Holdings is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of Esprit Holdings strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Esprit Holdings 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Esprit Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Apparel) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Esprit Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Apparel) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Esprit Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Lack of clear differentiation of Esprit Holdings products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Esprit Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Esprit Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Apparel) industry, Esprit Holdings 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Esprit Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Apparel) 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.

High dependence on Esprit Holdings ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Esprit Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Apparel) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Esprit Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.




Esprit Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Esprit Holdings are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Esprit Holdings 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 (Apparel) industry.

Manufacturing automation

– Esprit Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Apparel) 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Esprit Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Apparel) 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Esprit Holdings 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Esprit Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Apparel) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Esprit Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Esprit Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Esprit Holdings to increase its market reach. Esprit Holdings 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Esprit Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Esprit Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Apparel) sector.

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 Esprit Holdings 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Esprit Holdings has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Esprit Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Esprit Holdings 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Esprit Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Esprit Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Apparel) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.




Threats Esprit Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Esprit Holdings are -

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 Esprit Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Esprit Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Apparel) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Esprit Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Apparel) 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Esprit Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) industry and other sectors.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Apparel) industry are lowering. It can presents Esprit Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Apparel) sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Esprit Holdings 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 (Apparel) industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Esprit Holdings is facing in Retail (Apparel) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Esprit Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Apparel) sector.

Increasing wage structure of Esprit Holdings

– 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 Esprit Holdings.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Apparel) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Esprit Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

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.

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 Esprit Holdings.

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. Esprit Holdings 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.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Esprit Holdings Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings 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 Esprit Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



--- ---

Thermon SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Consumer Cyclical , Appliance & Tool


Shenzhen Int Hlds SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Transportation , Misc. Transportation


Sabra SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Services , Real Estate Operations


M H Group SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Services , Personal Services


Banswara Syntex Ltd SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Consumer Cyclical , Apparel/Accessories


Forward Air SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix

Transportation , Air Courier