Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the YuanShengTai Dairy Farm, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
2. Improving business portfolio management of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
Strengths of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm are -
Organizational Resilience of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing YuanShengTai Dairy Farm does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – YuanShengTai Dairy Farm staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Training and development
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Innovation driven organization
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.
Learning organization
- YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at YuanShengTai Dairy Farm emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
High dependence on YuanShengTai Dairy Farm ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to provide better information regarding Fish/Livestock products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fish/Livestock 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that YuanShengTai Dairy Farm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fish/Livestock industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as YuanShengTai Dairy Farm is planning to shift buying processes online.
YuanShengTai Dairy Farm Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to increase its market reach. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
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. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that YuanShengTai Dairy Farm operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fish/Livestock sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fish/Livestock industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock industry.
Buying journey improvements
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fish/Livestock 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for YuanShengTai Dairy Farm in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm are -
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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents YuanShengTai Dairy Farm with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for YuanShengTai Dairy Farm in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, YuanShengTai Dairy Farm may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fish/Livestock 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm
– 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fish/Livestock industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. YuanShengTai Dairy Farm can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 Fish/Livestock industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of YuanShengTai Dairy Farm Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm 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 YuanShengTai Dairy Farm needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.