Victory City Intl (539) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Apparel/Accessories
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Victory City Intl (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Victory City Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Victory City Intl
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Victory City Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Victory City Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Victory City Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Victory City Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Victory City Intl
Strengths of Victory City Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Victory City Intl are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Victory City Intl 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Victory City Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Victory City Intl staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Diverse revenue streams
– Victory City Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided Victory City Intl 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.
Ability to lead change in Apparel/Accessories
– Victory City Intl is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Apparel/Accessories industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Victory City Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Apparel/Accessories industry
– Victory City Intl has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Victory City Intl to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Victory City Intl to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Victory City Intl is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Learning organization
- Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Victory City Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Victory City Intl 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 Apparel/Accessories 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Victory City Intl has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Apparel/Accessories industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Victory City Intl have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry
– Victory City Intl is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Victory City Intl is one of the most innovative firm in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Victory City Intl has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Victory City Intl 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.
Weaknesses of Victory City Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Victory City Intl are -
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Victory City Intl, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Victory City Intl has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Victory City Intl 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Victory City Intl has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry over the last five years. Victory City Intl even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Victory City Intl is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Victory City Intl products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Victory City Intl needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Victory City Intl ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Victory City Intl still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Apparel/Accessories industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Victory City Intl has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Victory City Intl strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Victory City Intl 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Apparel/Accessories industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Victory City Intl 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Victory City Intl has some of the most successful models in the Apparel/Accessories industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Victory City Intl should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Victory City Intl has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Victory City Intl needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Victory City Intl can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Victory City Intl is planning to shift buying processes online.
Victory City Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Victory City Intl are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Victory City Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Apparel/Accessories industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Victory City Intl can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Victory City Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Apparel/Accessories industry. This can help Victory City Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Victory City Intl products in the Apparel/Accessories industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Victory City Intl 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Victory City Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Victory City Intl to increase its market reach. Victory City Intl 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl 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, Victory City Intl is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Victory City Intl can utilize new technology in the field of Apparel/Accessories industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Victory City Intl to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Victory City Intl can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Victory City Intl operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.
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. Victory City Intl can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Victory City Intl can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Victory City Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Victory City Intl are -
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Victory City Intl in the Apparel/Accessories sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Victory City Intl.
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.
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 Victory City Intl 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. Victory City Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Victory City Intl 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Victory City Intl may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Apparel/Accessories sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Victory City Intl has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Victory City Intl needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Environmental challenges
– Victory City Intl 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. Victory City Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Victory City Intl is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Victory City Intl can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Victory City Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl 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 Victory City Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
