SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bossini Intl (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bossini Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bossini Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bossini Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bossini 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 Bossini Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bossini Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bossini Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Apparel) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Bossini Intl
Strengths of Bossini Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bossini Intl are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Bossini Intl is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Bossini Intl has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Bossini 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bossini Intl in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Bossini Intl has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bossini Intl to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Bossini 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 Bossini Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bossini Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Bossini Intl
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Bossini Intl does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Bossini Intl 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bossini Intl comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Bossini Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Bossini Intl staying ahead in the Retail (Apparel) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Apparel)
– Bossini Intl is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Apparel) industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Bossini Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Bossini Intl 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bossini Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Apparel) industry. This has provided Bossini 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Apparel) industry
– Bossini 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.
Weaknesses of Bossini Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bossini Intl are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bossini Intl is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Bossini Intl needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Apparel) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Bossini Intl can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Bossini Intl is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Apparel) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Bossini 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Bossini 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Bossini Intl has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Apparel) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Bossini Intl is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Bossini Intl to provide better information regarding Retail (Apparel) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Bossini Intl 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 Retail (Apparel) industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Bossini Intl has high operating costs in the Retail (Apparel) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Bossini Intl lucrative customers.
High dependence on Bossini Intl ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Bossini Intl still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Apparel) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Bossini Intl has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bossini 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, Bossini 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 Retail (Apparel) industry over the last five years. Bossini 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.
Bossini Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bossini Intl are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Bossini Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Apparel) industry. This can help Bossini Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Bossini Intl products in the Retail (Apparel) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Apparel) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Bossini Intl 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. Bossini Intl 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bossini Intl has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Apparel) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Bossini Intl to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bossini Intl to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bossini Intl 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bossini Intl 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Bossini Intl 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Bossini Intl in the Retail (Apparel) industry. Now Bossini Intl can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bossini 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 Bossini 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.
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 Bossini 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Bossini Intl is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Bossini Intl can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Apparel) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Bossini Intl in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Apparel) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Bossini Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Apparel) 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 Bossini Intl to increase its market reach. Bossini 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.
Threats Bossini Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bossini Intl are -
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 Bossini Intl.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Apparel) industry are lowering. It can presents Bossini Intl with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Apparel) sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Bossini Intl 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bossini 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 Bossini Intl prominent markets.
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.
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.
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. Bossini Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Apparel) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bossini 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 Retail (Apparel) industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Bossini 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. Bossini Intl can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Apparel) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Bossini 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 Retail (Apparel) sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Bossini Intl is facing in Retail (Apparel) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bossini Intl in Retail (Apparel) industry. The Retail (Apparel) 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.
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 Bossini Intl in the Retail (Apparel) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bossini Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bossini 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 Bossini 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 Bossini 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 Bossini 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 Bossini Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
