Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit (1319) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Consumer Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit
2. Improving business portfolio management of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit
Strengths of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit are -
High brand equity
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Consumer Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Training and development
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Consumer Financial Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Analytics focus
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Consumer Financial 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Consumer Financial Services industry
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Consumer Financial Services industry
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Weaknesses of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit, in the dynamic environment of Consumer Financial Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry over the last five years. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
High dependence on Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Consumer Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Consumer Financial Services industry, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, but Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to focus more on services in the Consumer Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Consumer Financial Services 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Consumer Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Need for greater diversity
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Consumer Financial Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Consumer Financial 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Consumer Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
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. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to build a more holistic ecosystem for Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Consumer Financial 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can utilize new technology in the field of Consumer Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Consumer Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit are -
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. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit is facing in Consumer Financial 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, Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Consumer Financial Services industry and other sectors.
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. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Consumer Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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.
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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit in the Consumer Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Consumer Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Consumer Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Consumer Financial Services sector.
Environmental challenges
– Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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. Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit 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 Oi Wah Pawnshop Credit needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.