Ch Soft Power (139) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Communications Equipment
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ch Soft Power (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ch Soft Power is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ch Soft Power can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ch Soft Power, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ch Soft Power
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ch Soft Power
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ch Soft Power
Strengths of Ch Soft Power | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ch Soft Power are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ch Soft Power has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ch Soft Power staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ch Soft Power in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– Ch Soft Power is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Communications Equipment industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ch Soft Power digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ch Soft Power 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.
Ability to lead change in Communications Equipment
– Ch Soft Power is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Equipment industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ch Soft Power in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Ch Soft Power is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.
Learning organization
- Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ch Soft Power emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ch Soft Power in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Ch Soft Power has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ch Soft Power to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ch Soft Power comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.
Analytics focus
– Ch Soft Power 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 Communications Equipment 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.
High brand equity
– Ch Soft Power has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ch Soft Power to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ch Soft Power has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ch Soft Power have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Ch Soft Power | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ch Soft Power are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Ch Soft Power 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ch Soft Power has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. Ch Soft Power 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Ch Soft Power, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ch Soft Power has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ch Soft Power 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 Communications Equipment industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Ch Soft Power 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Ch Soft Power strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ch Soft Power 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ch Soft Power products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ch Soft Power needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ch Soft Power is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ch Soft Power to provide better information regarding Communications Equipment products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ch Soft Power has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ch Soft Power has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ch Soft Power lucrative customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ch Soft Power, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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.
Ch Soft Power Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ch Soft Power are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ch Soft Power can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Ch Soft Power can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ch Soft Power has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help Ch Soft Power to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ch Soft Power products in the Communications Equipment industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Ch Soft Power 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, Ch Soft Power is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ch Soft Power can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ch Soft Power 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ch Soft Power can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ch Soft Power operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Ch Soft Power has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ch Soft Power in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ch Soft Power in the Communications Equipment industry. Now Ch Soft Power can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ch Soft Power 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Ch Soft Power can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Equipment 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Ch Soft Power External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ch Soft Power are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ch Soft Power in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ch Soft Power is facing in Communications Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ch Soft Power 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 Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ch Soft Power 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
– Ch Soft Power 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. Ch Soft Power can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power prominent markets.
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.
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 Ch Soft Power.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ch Soft Power 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Ch Soft Power 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Ch Soft Power with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ch Soft Power has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ch Soft Power needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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 Ch Soft Power Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power 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 Ch Soft Power needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
