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Agricultural Bank of China SWOT Analysis / Matrix
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SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used by Agricultural Bank of China managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is a handy technique to map out the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Agricultural Bank of China is facing in its current business environment.
The Agricultural Bank of China is one of the leading companies in its industry. Agricultural Bank of China maintains its dominant position in market by carefully analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the company such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
The SWOT Analysis framework enables an organization to identify the internal strategic factors such as -strengths and weaknesses, & external strategic factors such as - opportunities and threats. It leads to a 2X2 matrix – also called SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix helps the managers of the Agricultural Bank of China to develop four types of strategies:
- SO (strengths-opportunities) Strategies
- WO (weaknesses-opportunities) Strategies
- ST (strengths-threats) Strategies
- WT (weaknesses-threats) Strategies
SWOT Matrix Strategies Objective
The main purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that a company can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Agricultural Bank of China strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Agricultural Bank of China SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Agricultural Bank of China – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading organizations in its industry, Agricultural Bank of China has numerous strengths that enable it to thrive in the market place. These strengths not only help it to protect the market share in existing markets but also help in penetrating new markets. Based on Fern Fort University extensive research – some of the strengths of Agricultural Bank of China are –
- Superb Performance in New Markets – Agricultural Bank of China has built expertise at entering new markets and making success of them. The expansion has helped the organization to build new revenue stream and diversify the economic cycle risk in the markets it operates in.
- High level of customer satisfaction – the company with its dedicated customer relationship management department has able to achieve a high level of customer satisfaction among present customers and good brand equity among the potential customers.
- Good Returns on Capital Expenditure – Agricultural Bank of China is relatively successful at execution of new projects and generated good returns on capital expenditure by building new revenue streams.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Agricultural Bank of China is investing huge resources in training and development of its employees resulting in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Agricultural Bank of China products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong Free Cash Flow – Agricultural Bank of China has strong free cash flows that provide resources in the hand of the company to expand into new projects.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
Weakness of Agricultural Bank of China – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Agricultural Bank of China can improve upon. Strategy is about making choices and weakness are the areas where a company can improve using SWOT analysis and build on its competitive advantage and strategic positioning.
- Financial planning is not done properly and efficiently. The current asset ratio and liquid asset ratios suggest that the company can use the cash more efficiently than what it is doing at present.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Agricultural Bank of China is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Agricultural Bank of China is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- The marketing of the products left a lot to be desired. Even though the product is a success in terms of sale but its positioning and unique selling proposition is not clearly defined which can lead to the attacks in this segment from the competitors.
- The company has not being able to tackle the challenges present by the new entrants in the segment and has lost small market share in the niche categories. Agricultural Bank of China has to build internal feedback mechanism directly from sales team on ground to counter these challenges.
- There are gaps in the product range sold by the company. This lack of choice can give a new competitor a foothold in the market.
- The profitability ratio and Net Contribution % of Agricultural Bank of China are below the industry average.
Opportunities for Agricultural Bank of China – External Strategic Factors
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Agricultural Bank of China an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
- The market development will lead to dilution of competitor’s advantage and enable Agricultural Bank of China to increase its competitiveness compare to the other competitors.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Agricultural Bank of China . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- The new technology provides an opportunity to Agricultural Bank of China to practices differentiated pricing strategy in the new market. It will enable the firm to maintain its loyal customers with great service and lure new customers through other value oriented propositions.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Agricultural Bank of China products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- Lower inflation rate – The low inflation rate bring more stability in the market, enable credit at lower interest rate to the customers of Agricultural Bank of China.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Agricultural Bank of China to increase its profitability.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Agricultural Bank of China to capture new customers and increase its market share.
Threats Agricultural Bank of China Facing - External Strategic Factors
- New environment regulations under Paris agreement (2016) could be a threat to certain existing product categories .
- Growing strengths of local distributors also presents a threat in some markets as the competition is paying higher margins to the local distributors.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Agricultural Bank of China in those markets.
- Intense competition – Stable profitability has increased the number of players in the industry over last two years which has put downward pressure on not only profitability but also on overall sales.
- New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- Liability laws in different countries are different and Agricultural Bank of China may be exposed to various liability claims given change in policies in those markets.
- As the company is operating in numerous countries it is exposed to currency fluctuations especially given the volatile political climate in number of markets across the world.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Agricultural Bank of China
Although the SWOT analysis is widely used as a strategic planning tool, the analysis does have its share of limitations.
- Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of SWOT analysis . For example changing environmental regulations can be both a threat to company it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it able to develop the products faster than the competitors.
- SWOT does not show how to achieve a competitive advantage, so it must not be an end in itself.
- The matrix is only a starting point for a discussion on how proposed strategies could be implemented. It provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on strategic competitiveness of Agricultural Bank of China
- SWOT is a static assessment - analysis of status quo with few prospective changes. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the dynamics of a competitive environment may not be revealed in a single matrix.
- SWOT analysis may lead the firm to overemphasize a single internal or external factor in formulating strategies. There are interrelationships among the key internal and external factors that SWOT does not reveal that may be important in devising strategies.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Agricultural Bank of China
In light of the above mentioned limitations of the SWOT analysis / matrix, corporate managers decided to provide weightage to each internal strength and weakness of the firm. Organizations also assess the likelihood of events taking place in the coming future and how strong their impact could be on company's performance.
This method is called Weighted SWOT analysis. It is better than doing simplistic SWOT analysis because with Weighted SWOT Analysis Agricultural Bank of China managers can focus on the most critical factors and discount the non-important one. It also solves the long list problem where organizations ends up making a long list but none of the factors deemed too critical.
Limitation of Weighted SWOT analysis of Agricultural Bank of China
This approach also suffers from one major drawback - it focus on individual importance of factor rather than how they are collectively important and impact the business holistically.
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SWOT Worksheet & Template
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References / Citations & Bibliography
- M. E. Porter, Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
- A. D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962)
- O. E. Williamson, Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975);
- L. Wrigley, Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970)
- R. E. White, Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986)