Aeon Credit Service Asia (900) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Consumer Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Aeon Credit Service Asia (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Aeon Credit Service Asia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Aeon Credit Service Asia
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Aeon Credit Service Asia can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aeon Credit Service Asia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Aeon Credit Service Asia
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aeon Credit Service Asia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Aeon Credit Service Asia
Strengths of Aeon Credit Service Asia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Aeon Credit Service Asia are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Aeon Credit Service Asia in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Aeon Credit Service Asia
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Aeon Credit Service Asia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Consumer Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Aeon Credit Service Asia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Aeon Credit Service Asia has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Aeon Credit Service Asia staying ahead in the Consumer Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Aeon Credit Service Asia emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry
– Aeon Credit Service Asia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High brand equity
– Aeon Credit Service Asia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Aeon Credit Service Asia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Aeon Credit Service Asia has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Consumer Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Aeon Credit Service Asia have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Aeon Credit Service Asia is one of the most innovative firm in Consumer Financial Services sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Consumer Financial Services industry
– Aeon Credit Service Asia has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Aeon Credit Service Asia to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Aeon Credit Service Asia to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Aeon Credit Service Asia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Aeon Credit Service Asia are -
Employees’ less understanding of Aeon Credit Service Asia strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Skills based hiring in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Aeon Credit Service Asia, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Consumer Financial Services 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Consumer Financial Services industry, Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Aeon Credit Service Asia needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Aeon Credit Service Asia needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Consumer Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Aeon Credit Service Asia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Aeon Credit Service Asia is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Aeon Credit Service Asia has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry over the last five years. Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
High dependence on Aeon Credit Service Asia ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Aeon Credit Service Asia still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Consumer Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Aeon Credit Service Asia has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Aeon Credit Service Asia has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Consumer Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Aeon Credit Service Asia Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Aeon Credit Service Asia are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Consumer Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Aeon Credit Service Asia 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. Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
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. Aeon Credit Service Asia can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Aeon Credit Service Asia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Consumer Financial Services industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Developing new processes and practices
– Aeon Credit Service Asia can develop new processes and procedures in Consumer Financial Services 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Aeon Credit Service Asia in the Consumer Financial Services industry. Now Aeon Credit Service Asia can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Aeon Credit Service Asia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help Aeon Credit Service Asia to build a more holistic ecosystem for Aeon Credit Service Asia products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Aeon Credit Service Asia in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Consumer Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Aeon Credit Service Asia has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Aeon Credit Service Asia to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Aeon Credit Service Asia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Aeon Credit Service Asia can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Threats Aeon Credit Service Asia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Aeon Credit Service Asia are -
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 Aeon Credit Service Asia.
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. Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia in the Consumer Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Consumer Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Aeon Credit Service Asia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Aeon Credit Service Asia may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia prominent markets.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
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 Aeon Credit Service Asia business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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.
Environmental challenges
– Aeon Credit Service Asia 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. Aeon Credit Service Asia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Aeon Credit Service Asia Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia 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 Aeon Credit Service Asia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
