Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Legend Strategy Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices,
increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Legend Strategy Intl
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Legend Strategy Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Legend Strategy Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Legend Strategy Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of Legend Strategy Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Hotels & Motels sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Legend Strategy Intl
Strengths of Legend Strategy Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Legend Strategy Intl are -
Ability to lead change in Hotels & Motels
– Legend Strategy Intl is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Hotels & Motels industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Legend Strategy Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Legend Strategy 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 Hotels & Motels 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
– Legend Strategy Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Hotels & Motels industry. This has provided Legend Strategy 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 recruit top talent
– Legend Strategy Intl is one of the leading players in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Legend Strategy Intl has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Hotels & Motels industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Legend Strategy Intl have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Legend Strategy 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Legend Strategy 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)
– Legend Strategy Intl has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Legend Strategy Intl staying ahead in the Hotels & Motels industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Hotels & Motels industry
– Legend Strategy 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.
Learning organization
- Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Legend Strategy Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Legend Strategy Intl comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Legend Strategy Intl has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Legend Strategy Intl are -
Employees’ less understanding of Legend Strategy Intl strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Legend Strategy 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Hotels & Motels industry, Legend Strategy Intl 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Legend Strategy Intl 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Legend Strategy Intl has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Hotels & Motels 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 Legend Strategy Intl ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Legend Strategy Intl still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Hotels & Motels industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Legend Strategy Intl has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, Legend Strategy Intl needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Legend Strategy Intl is just above the Hotels & Motels industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Legend Strategy 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Legend Strategy 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 Hotels & Motels industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Legend Strategy 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 Hotels & Motels industry over the last five years. Legend Strategy 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.
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 Legend Strategy Intl supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Legend Strategy Intl is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Legend Strategy Intl vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Legend Strategy Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Legend Strategy Intl are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Legend Strategy Intl to increase its market reach. Legend Strategy 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Hotels & Motels industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Legend Strategy Intl in the Hotels & Motels industry. Now Legend Strategy Intl can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Legend Strategy Intl can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Legend Strategy Intl can develop new processes and procedures in Hotels & Motels 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Legend Strategy 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 Hotels & Motels industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Legend Strategy Intl can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Hotels & Motels 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Legend Strategy Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Legend Strategy Intl has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Hotels & Motels industry. This can help Legend Strategy Intl to build a more holistic ecosystem for Legend Strategy Intl products in the Hotels & Motels industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Legend Strategy Intl can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Legend Strategy Intl operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Hotels & Motels sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Legend Strategy 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Legend Strategy 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.
Threats Legend Strategy Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Legend Strategy Intl are -
Regulatory challenges
– Legend Strategy Intl 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 Hotels & Motels industry regulations.
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. Legend Strategy Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Hotels & Motels industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Legend Strategy 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Legend Strategy Intl in Hotels & Motels industry. The Hotels & Motels 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Legend Strategy 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 Hotels & Motels sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl prominent markets.
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 Legend Strategy Intl business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Hotels & Motels industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Legend Strategy Intl can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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 Legend Strategy Intl in the Hotels & Motels sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Legend Strategy Intl 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Legend Strategy Intl has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Hotels & Motels industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Legend Strategy Intl needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Hotels & Motels 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Legend Strategy Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy 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 Legend Strategy Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
