Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Chuang’s Consortium Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Chuang’s Consortium Intl
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Chuang’s Consortium Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Chuang’s Consortium Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Chuang’s Consortium Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Chuang’s Consortium Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Chuang’s Consortium Intl
Strengths of Chuang’s Consortium Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Chuang’s Consortium Intl are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Real Estate Operations industry. This has provided Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Learning organization
- Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Chuang’s Consortium Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Real Estate Operations industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Chuang’s Consortium Intl have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Chuang’s Consortium Intl to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Real Estate Operations 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Chuang’s Consortium Intl in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Chuang’s Consortium Intl has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Chuang’s Consortium Intl to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Real Estate Operations industry
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Chuang’s Consortium Intl to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Chuang’s Consortium Intl to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Chuang’s Consortium Intl staying ahead in the Real Estate Operations industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Chuang’s Consortium Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Chuang’s Consortium Intl are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Chuang’s Consortium Intl, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Chuang’s Consortium Intl has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Chuang’s Consortium Intl has high operating costs in the Real Estate Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Chuang’s Consortium Intl lucrative customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Chuang’s Consortium Intl needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Chuang’s Consortium Intl is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Chuang’s Consortium Intl to provide better information regarding Real Estate Operations products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Chuang’s Consortium Intl has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Real Estate Operations industry over the last five years. Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Real Estate Operations industry, Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Chuang’s Consortium Intl is just above the Real Estate Operations industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Chuang’s Consortium Intl is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Real Estate Operations industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Chuang’s Consortium Intl strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Chuang’s Consortium Intl is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Chuang’s Consortium Intl needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Chuang’s Consortium Intl to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Chuang’s Consortium Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Chuang’s Consortium Intl are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Chuang’s Consortium Intl can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Chuang’s Consortium Intl operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Real Estate Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Chuang’s Consortium Intl to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Chuang’s Consortium Intl to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Real Estate Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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, Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Real Estate Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Chuang’s Consortium Intl in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Real Estate Operations industry. This can help Chuang’s Consortium Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Chuang’s Consortium Intl products in the Real Estate Operations industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Chuang’s Consortium Intl in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Real Estate Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Developing new processes and practices
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Real Estate Operations 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Real Estate Operations sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Threats Chuang’s Consortium Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Chuang’s Consortium Intl are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Real Estate Operations industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Chuang’s Consortium Intl can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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. Chuang’s Consortium Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Chuang’s Consortium Intl in Real Estate Operations industry. The Real Estate Operations 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.
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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Chuang’s Consortium Intl may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Real Estate Operations sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Chuang’s Consortium Intl with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Real Estate Operations sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Chuang’s Consortium Intl is facing in Real Estate Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
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. Chuang’s Consortium Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Real Estate Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Real Estate Operations industry regulations.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Chuang’s Consortium Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl 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 Chuang’s Consortium Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.