Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Guodian Techn Environment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Guodian Techn Environment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Guodian Techn Environment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guodian Techn Environment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Guodian Techn Environment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guodian Techn Environment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guodian Techn Environment
Strengths of Guodian Techn Environment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guodian Techn Environment are -
Learning organization
- Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Guodian Techn Environment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Guodian Techn Environment
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guodian Techn Environment has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electric Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Guodian Techn Environment have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Guodian Techn Environment is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– Guodian Techn Environment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guodian Techn Environment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guodian Techn Environment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Guodian Techn Environment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electric Utilities 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Guodian Techn Environment in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Digital Transformation in Electric Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Guodian Techn Environment digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Training and development
– Guodian Techn Environment has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.
Ability to lead change in Electric Utilities
– Guodian Techn Environment is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Electric Utilities industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Guodian Techn Environment in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Guodian Techn Environment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Guodian Techn Environment are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Guodian Techn Environment has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry over the last five years. Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Guodian Techn Environment strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Guodian Techn Environment is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Guodian Techn Environment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electric Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Guodian Techn Environment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Guodian Techn Environment is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Guodian Techn Environment is just above the Electric Utilities 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Guodian Techn Environment is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Guodian Techn Environment to provide better information regarding Electric Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Guodian Techn Environment supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Guodian Techn Environment is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Guodian Techn Environment vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Guodian Techn Environment, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electric Utilities 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Electric Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Guodian Techn Environment 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 Electric Utilities industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guodian Techn Environment has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Electric Utilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Guodian Techn Environment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Guodian Techn Environment 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, Guodian Techn Environment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guodian Techn Environment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electric Utilities sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Guodian Techn Environment can develop new processes and procedures in Electric Utilities 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Guodian Techn Environment to increase its market reach. Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electric Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Guodian Techn Environment can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electric Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Guodian Techn Environment 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. Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guodian Techn Environment 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
– Guodian Techn Environment can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electric Utilities 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guodian Techn Environment in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electric Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Guodian Techn Environment is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Guodian Techn Environment can utilize new technology in the field of Electric Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Guodian Techn Environment has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electric Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Guodian Techn Environment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Guodian Techn Environment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Guodian Techn Environment can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Guodian Techn Environment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Guodian Techn Environment are -
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 Guodian Techn Environment business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Guodian Techn Environment in Electric Utilities industry. The Electric Utilities 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Guodian Techn Environment 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 Electric Utilities industry regulations.
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. Guodian Techn Environment 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guodian Techn Environment 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electric Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Guodian Techn Environment 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
– Guodian Techn Environment 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. Guodian Techn Environment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities 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 Guodian Techn Environment in the Electric Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Guodian Techn Environment with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
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 wage structure of Guodian Techn Environment
– 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 Guodian Techn Environment.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Guodian Techn Environment has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electric Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Guodian Techn Environment needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electric Utilities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Guodian Techn Environment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment 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 Guodian Techn Environment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.