SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eternity Investment (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eternity Investment is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Eternity Investment
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eternity Investment can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eternity Investment, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eternity Investment
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eternity Investment
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eternity Investment
Strengths of Eternity Investment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eternity Investment are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Eternity Investment has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eternity Investment to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eternity Investment to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eternity Investment 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.
High brand equity
– Eternity Investment has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eternity Investment to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eternity Investment emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eternity Investment comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eternity Investment is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Eternity Investment 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eternity Investment has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eternity Investment staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Eternity Investment is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eternity Investment 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.
Training and development
– Eternity Investment 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Eternity Investment is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eternity Investment in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Eternity Investment has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eternity Investment to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Eternity Investment | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eternity Investment are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Eternity Investment needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Eternity Investment can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Eternity Investment is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Eternity Investment supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eternity Investment is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eternity Investment vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eternity Investment has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Eternity Investment 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eternity Investment 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 Business Services industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Eternity Investment 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 Business Services industry.
High dependence on Eternity Investment ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eternity Investment still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eternity Investment has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Eternity Investment strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eternity Investment 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
– Eternity Investment 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Eternity Investment products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Eternity Investment needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eternity Investment 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eternity Investment has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eternity Investment lucrative customers.
Eternity Investment Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eternity Investment are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eternity Investment 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eternity Investment to increase its market reach. Eternity Investment 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eternity Investment 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 Business Services industry.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eternity Investment has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Eternity Investment to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eternity Investment products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Eternity Investment 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 Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eternity Investment 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. Eternity Investment 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Eternity Investment 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.
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. Eternity Investment can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eternity Investment has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eternity Investment to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eternity Investment to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Eternity Investment 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eternity Investment in the Business Services industry. Now Eternity Investment can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eternity Investment can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eternity Investment operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Threats Eternity Investment External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eternity Investment are -
Environmental challenges
– Eternity Investment 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. Eternity Investment can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eternity Investment 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.
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 Eternity Investment.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eternity Investment 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 Business Services industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eternity Investment is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eternity Investment may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
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. Eternity Investment 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.
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 Eternity Investment in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eternity Investment can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eternity Investment in Business Services industry. The Business 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.
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. Eternity Investment needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eternity Investment Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment 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 Eternity Investment needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.