SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cabbeen Fashion (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cabbeen Fashion is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing commodity prices,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cabbeen Fashion can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cabbeen Fashion, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cabbeen Fashion
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cabbeen Fashion
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cabbeen Fashion
Strengths of Cabbeen Fashion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cabbeen Fashion are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Cabbeen Fashion is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Cabbeen Fashion 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.
High brand equity
– Cabbeen Fashion has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cabbeen Fashion to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Cabbeen Fashion digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Cabbeen Fashion 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Cabbeen Fashion has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cabbeen Fashion have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cabbeen Fashion in Apparel/Accessories industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry
– Cabbeen Fashion has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cabbeen Fashion to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cabbeen Fashion to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cabbeen Fashion emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cabbeen Fashion has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cabbeen Fashion staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Cabbeen Fashion is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Analytics focus
– Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cabbeen Fashion is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cabbeen Fashion comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Weaknesses of Cabbeen Fashion | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cabbeen Fashion are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cabbeen Fashion is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cabbeen Fashion to provide better information regarding Apparel/Accessories products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cabbeen Fashion is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cabbeen Fashion, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Apparel/Accessories 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Apparel/Accessories industry, Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cabbeen Fashion still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Apparel/Accessories industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cabbeen Fashion has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cabbeen Fashion needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cabbeen Fashion can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cabbeen Fashion is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Cabbeen Fashion strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Cabbeen Fashion has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Cabbeen Fashion should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cabbeen Fashion has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Cabbeen Fashion Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cabbeen Fashion are -
Manufacturing automation
– Cabbeen Fashion can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Apparel/Accessories 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cabbeen Fashion can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Cabbeen Fashion 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.
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 Cabbeen Fashion to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cabbeen Fashion can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cabbeen Fashion to increase its market reach. Cabbeen Fashion 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Cabbeen Fashion has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Apparel/Accessories industry. This can help Cabbeen Fashion to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cabbeen Fashion products in the Apparel/Accessories industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cabbeen Fashion 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.
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. Cabbeen Fashion can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cabbeen Fashion is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cabbeen Fashion can utilize new technology in the field of Apparel/Accessories industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cabbeen Fashion in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now Cabbeen Fashion can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cabbeen Fashion 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.
Threats Cabbeen Fashion External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cabbeen Fashion 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. Cabbeen Fashion needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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, Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cabbeen Fashion is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cabbeen Fashion in Apparel/Accessories industry. The Apparel/Accessories 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.
Environmental challenges
– Cabbeen Fashion 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. Cabbeen Fashion can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.
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 Cabbeen Fashion business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Cabbeen Fashion.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cabbeen Fashion 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cabbeen Fashion 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cabbeen Fashion Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion 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 Cabbeen Fashion needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.