Hong Kong Ferry (50) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hong Kong Ferry (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hong Kong Ferry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hong Kong Ferry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hong Kong Ferry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hong Kong Ferry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hong Kong Ferry
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hong Kong Ferry
Strengths of Hong Kong Ferry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hong Kong Ferry are -
Analytics focus
– Hong Kong Ferry 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 Water Transportation 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
– Hong Kong Ferry has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hong Kong Ferry to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hong Kong Ferry has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hong Kong Ferry have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Hong Kong Ferry is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hong Kong Ferry in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Hong Kong Ferry has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hong Kong Ferry to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hong Kong Ferry is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Hong Kong Ferry has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hong Kong Ferry to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hong Kong Ferry to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Hong Kong Ferry is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hong Kong Ferry in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hong Kong Ferry in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hong Kong Ferry emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Hong Kong Ferry
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hong Kong Ferry does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Weaknesses of Hong Kong Ferry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hong Kong Ferry are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hong Kong Ferry has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hong Kong Ferry lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hong Kong Ferry is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hong Kong Ferry, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hong Kong Ferry has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, Hong Kong Ferry needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
High dependence on Hong Kong Ferry ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hong Kong Ferry still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hong Kong Ferry has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Hong Kong Ferry supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hong Kong Ferry is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hong Kong Ferry vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Hong Kong Ferry, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Hong Kong Ferry has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hong Kong Ferry 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Hong Kong Ferry strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hong Kong Ferry 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Ferry 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 Water Transportation industry.
Hong Kong Ferry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hong Kong Ferry are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hong Kong Ferry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hong Kong Ferry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Hong Kong Ferry can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hong Kong Ferry has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hong Kong Ferry to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry to increase its market reach. Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hong Kong Ferry in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Hong Kong Ferry can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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
– Hong Kong Ferry can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hong Kong Ferry 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. Hong Kong Ferry 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.
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 Hong Kong Ferry 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. Hong Kong Ferry can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Hong Kong Ferry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hong Kong Ferry are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hong Kong Ferry is facing in Water Transportation 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, Hong Kong Ferry may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hong Kong Ferry in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hong Kong Ferry has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hong Kong Ferry needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hong Kong Ferry 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 Water Transportation industry.
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.
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 Hong Kong Ferry business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hong Kong Ferry 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.
Increasing wage structure of Hong Kong Ferry
– 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 Hong Kong Ferry.
Regulatory challenges
– Hong Kong Ferry 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
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 Hong Kong Ferry in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Hong Kong Ferry 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. Hong Kong Ferry can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hong Kong Ferry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry 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 Hong Kong Ferry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.