Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guangdong Yueyun Transportation, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
Strengths of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Guangdong Yueyun Transportation digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Training and development
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Guangdong Yueyun Transportation does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 lead change in Misc. Transportation
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Transportation industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guangdong Yueyun Transportation in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Guangdong Yueyun Transportation staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.
Weaknesses of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is just above the Misc. Transportation 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Guangdong Yueyun Transportation ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Guangdong Yueyun Transportation, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is planning to shift buying processes online.
Guangdong Yueyun Transportation Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guangdong Yueyun Transportation in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Guangdong Yueyun Transportation to build a more holistic ecosystem for Guangdong Yueyun Transportation products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guangdong Yueyun Transportation to increase its market reach. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Threats Guangdong Yueyun Transportation External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation are -
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. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation prominent markets.
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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation
– 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Guangdong Yueyun Transportation in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. 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.
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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation 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. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guangdong Yueyun Transportation has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Guangdong Yueyun Transportation can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guangdong Yueyun Transportation Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation 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 Guangdong Yueyun Transportation needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.