Maoye Int Holdings (848) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Department & Discount)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maoye Int Holdings (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maoye Int Holdings 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%, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maoye Int Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maoye Int Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maoye Int Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maoye Int Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maoye Int Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Department & Discount) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maoye Int Holdings
Strengths of Maoye Int Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maoye Int Holdings are -
Organizational Resilience of Maoye Int Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maoye Int Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Maoye Int Holdings 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 Maoye Int Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maoye Int Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maoye Int 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Maoye Int Holdings is one of the leading players in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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
– Maoye Int 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 (Department & Discount) 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.
Training and development
– Maoye Int 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Maoye Int Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Maoye Int Holdings staying ahead in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Maoye Int Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Maoye Int Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Maoye Int Holdings in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Maoye Int Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Maoye Int Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Maoye Int Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– Maoye Int 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Maoye Int 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 (Department & Discount) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maoye Int Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Maoye Int Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maoye Int Holdings are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Maoye Int Holdings 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 Retail (Department & Discount) industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Maoye Int Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maoye Int Holdings to provide better information regarding Retail (Department & Discount) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Maoye Int Holdings 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Maoye Int Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Maoye Int Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Maoye Int Holdings supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Maoye Int Holdings is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Maoye Int Holdings vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Maoye Int Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maoye Int 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Maoye Int Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Maoye Int Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Maoye Int Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maoye Int 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Maoye Int Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Department & Discount) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Maoye Int Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Maoye Int Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Maoye Int Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Maoye Int Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry over the last five years. Maoye Int Holdings 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.
Maoye Int Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maoye Int Holdings are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maoye Int 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Maoye Int 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 (Department & Discount) industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Department & Discount) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maoye Int Holdings in the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. Now Maoye Int Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Maoye Int 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.
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. Maoye Int Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Maoye Int 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Maoye Int Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maoye Int Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Department & Discount) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Maoye Int Holdings 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Maoye Int Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Department & Discount) 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
– Maoye Int Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Department & Discount) 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.
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 Maoye Int 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Department & Discount) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Maoye Int Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Maoye Int Holdings 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 Maoye Int Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Maoye Int Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maoye Int Holdings are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Department & Discount) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maoye Int Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Maoye Int Holdings.
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. Maoye Int Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Department & Discount) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maoye Int Holdings is facing in Retail (Department & Discount) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int Holdings.
Regulatory challenges
– Maoye Int Holdings 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 Retail (Department & Discount) industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Maoye Int 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 (Department & Discount) industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Maoye Int Holdings 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.
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 Maoye Int Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Maoye Int 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 (Department & Discount) industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Maoye Int 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.
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 Maoye Int Holdings in the Retail (Department & Discount) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maoye Int Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int 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 Maoye Int Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.