SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Goldway Education (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Goldway Education is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Goldway Education
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Goldway Education can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Goldway Education, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Goldway Education
2. Improving business portfolio management of Goldway Education
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Goldway Education
Strengths of Goldway Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Goldway Education are -
Learning organization
- Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Goldway Education emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Goldway Education 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 Schools 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)
– Goldway Education has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Goldway Education staying ahead in the Schools industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Goldway Education has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Schools industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Goldway Education have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Goldway Education 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Goldway Education comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Schools industry
– Goldway Education has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Goldway Education to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Schools industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Goldway Education to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Schools
– Goldway Education is one of the leading players in the Schools industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Schools industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Goldway Education in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Schools industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Goldway Education digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Goldway Education 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Goldway Education in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Goldway Education has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Goldway Education to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Goldway Education has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Goldway Education 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
– Goldway Education is one of the most innovative firm in Schools sector.
Weaknesses of Goldway Education | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Goldway Education are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Goldway Education, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Schools 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Goldway Education is one of the leading players in the Schools industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Schools industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Goldway Education 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Goldway Education is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Schools industry, but Goldway Education needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Goldway Education to focus more on services in the Schools industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Schools industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Goldway Education 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, Goldway Education has high operating costs in the Schools industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Goldway Education lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Goldway Education 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Goldway Education has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Schools 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 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 Goldway Education supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Goldway Education is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Goldway Education vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Goldway Education has some of the most successful models in the Schools industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Goldway Education should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Goldway Education 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.
Goldway Education Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Goldway Education are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Goldway Education in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Schools industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Goldway Education is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Goldway Education can utilize new technology in the field of Schools industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Goldway Education has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Schools sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Goldway Education to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Goldway Education to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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. Goldway Education can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Goldway Education 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Goldway Education 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Schools industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Goldway Education 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. Goldway Education 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Manufacturing automation
– Goldway Education can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Schools 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Goldway Education can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Goldway Education operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Goldway Education 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 Schools industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Goldway Education can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Schools 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.
Threats Goldway Education External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Goldway Education are -
Regulatory challenges
– Goldway Education 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 Schools industry regulations.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Goldway Education in Schools industry. The Schools 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Goldway Education has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Goldway Education needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Goldway Education is facing in Schools sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Goldway Education
– 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 Goldway Education.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Goldway Education 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.
Environmental challenges
– Goldway Education 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. Goldway Education can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Schools 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. Goldway Education 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Schools industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Goldway Education can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Goldway Education business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Goldway Education needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Schools industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Goldway Education Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education 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 Goldway Education needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.