Lion Rock (1127) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lion Rock (Hong Kong)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lion Rock is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lion Rock

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lion Rock can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lion Rock, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lion Rock 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Lion Rock can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lion Rock
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lion Rock
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Printing Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Lion Rock

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Strengths of Lion Rock | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Lion Rock are -

Organizational Resilience of Lion Rock

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Lion Rock does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Lion Rock is one of the leading players in the Printing Services 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 Lion Rock 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.

Learning organization

- Lion Rock 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 Lion Rock is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lion Rock emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Ability to lead change in Printing Services

– Lion Rock is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing Services industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Lion Rock in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Innovation driven organization

– Lion Rock is one of the most innovative firm in Printing Services sector.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Lion Rock 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.

Digital Transformation in Printing Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Lion Rock digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Lion Rock 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

– Lion Rock has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Lion Rock have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Analytics focus

– Lion Rock 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 Printing Services 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 Lion Rock in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Lion Rock has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lion Rock to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Training and development

– Lion Rock has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.

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Weaknesses of Lion Rock | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Lion Rock are -

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Lion Rock is one of the leading players in the Printing Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing Services industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Lion Rock needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Printing Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Lion Rock can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Lion Rock is planning to shift buying processes online.

Employees’ less understanding of Lion Rock strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Lion Rock 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.

Need for greater diversity

– Lion Rock 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Lion Rock, in the dynamic environment of Printing Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lion Rock 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, Lion Rock has high operating costs in the Printing Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lion Rock lucrative customers.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Lion Rock has some of the most successful models in the Printing Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lion Rock should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Lack of clear differentiation of Lion Rock products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Lion Rock needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Skills based hiring in Printing Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lion Rock 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Lion Rock 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 Printing Services industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Lion Rock is just above the Printing Services 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.

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Lion Rock Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Lion Rock are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Lion Rock has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Printing Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Lion Rock to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lion Rock to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lion Rock in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Buying journey improvements

– Lion Rock can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing Services 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Lion Rock can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Lion Rock in the Printing Services industry. Now Lion Rock can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Lion Rock 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 Printing Services industry.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Lion Rock 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. Lion Rock 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Lion Rock can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Printing Services 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lion Rock 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Lion Rock is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Lion Rock can utilize new technology in the field of Printing Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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. Lion Rock can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Lion Rock to increase its market reach. Lion Rock 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.

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 Lion Rock 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.

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Threats Lion Rock External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Lion Rock are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Lion Rock 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.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lion Rock in Printing Services industry. The Printing Services 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Printing Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Lion Rock can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

Environmental challenges

– Lion Rock 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. Lion Rock can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing Services 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. Lion Rock needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Lion Rock has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Printing Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lion Rock needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Printing Services 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.

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 Lion Rock business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Lion Rock may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing Services sector.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Lion Rock 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 Printing Services 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 Lion Rock in the Printing Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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. Lion Rock 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lion Rock Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lion Rock 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 Lion Rock 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 Lion Rock 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 Lion Rock 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 Lion Rock needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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