Bestway Global (3358) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bestway Global (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bestway Global is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing commodity prices, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bestway Global

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bestway Global can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bestway Global, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bestway Global 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Bestway Global can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bestway Global
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bestway Global
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 Bestway Global

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Strengths of Bestway Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Bestway Global are -

High switching costs

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Bestway Global 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.

Analytics focus

– Bestway Global 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.

High brand equity

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Bestway Global in Recreational Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Diverse revenue streams

– Bestway Global is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Products industry. This has provided Bestway Global 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Bestway Global 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.

Training and development

– Bestway Global has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.

Digital Transformation in Recreational Products industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bestway Global digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bestway Global 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.

Learning organization

- Bestway Global 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 Bestway Global is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bestway Global emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Recreational Products industry

– Bestway Global has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bestway Global to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Recreational Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bestway Global to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Products industry

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

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Weaknesses of Bestway Global | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Bestway Global are -

High bargaining power of channel partners in Recreational Products industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Bestway Global 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 Recreational Products industry.

Employees’ less understanding of Bestway Global strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bestway Global 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.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bestway Global has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Recreational Products industry over the last five years. Bestway Global 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Bestway Global needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bestway Global can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bestway Global is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bestway Global is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bestway Global to provide better information regarding Recreational Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Need for greater diversity

– Bestway Global 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Bestway Global products

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Bestway Global 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Bestway Global 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 Bestway Global lucrative customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Bestway Global, 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.

Products dominated business model

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

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Bestway Global Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Bestway Global are -

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Bestway Global 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 Recreational Products industry.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bestway Global 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bestway Global 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. Bestway Global 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bestway Global 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

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

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 Bestway Global 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.

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. Bestway Global can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bestway Global 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 Bestway Global to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bestway Global 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Bestway Global 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Bestway Global can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Bestway Global operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Products sector.

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Threats Bestway Global External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Bestway Global are -

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. Bestway Global 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.

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 Bestway Global business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Environmental challenges

– Bestway Global 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. Bestway Global can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Products industry.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bestway Global 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Bestway Global 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.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bestway Global 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 Bestway Global prominent markets.

Increasing wage structure of Bestway Global

– 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 Bestway Global.

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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Bestway Global 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 Recreational Products industry and other sectors.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Bestway Global 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. Bestway Global needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Bestway Global has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Recreational Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bestway Global needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Recreational Products 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Bestway Global needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Recreational Products industry regulations.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bestway Global Template, Example

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

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