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Zhaopin Limited SWOT Analysis / Matrix
Business Essays, Term Papers & Research Papers
SWOT analysis is a vital strategic planning tool that can be used by Zhaopin Limited managers to do a situational analysis of the firm . It is an important technique to understand the present Strengths (S), Weakness (W), Opportunities (O) & Threats (T) Zhaopin Limited is facing in its current business environment.
The Zhaopin Limited is one of the leading organizatations in its industry. Zhaopin Limited maintains its dominant position in market by critically analyzing and reviewing the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis a highly interactive process and requires effective coordination among various departments within the firm such as – marketing, finance, operations, management information systems and strategic planning.
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The SWOT Analysis framework facilitates 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 known as SWOT Matrix.
The Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats (SWOT) Analysis / Matrix enables the managers of the Zhaopin Limited 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 core purpose of SWOT matrix is to identify the strategies that an organization can utilize to exploit external opportunities, counter threats, and build on & protect Zhaopin Limited strengths, and eradicate its weaknesses.
Step by Step Guide to Zhaopin Limited SWOT Analysis
Strengths of Zhaopin Limited – Internal Strategic Factors
As one of the leading firms in its industry, Zhaopin Limited 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 Zhaopin Limited are –
Read - Zhaopin Limited Porter 5 Forces Analysis & Industry Analysis
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- Highly skilled workforce through successful training and learning programs. Zhaopin Limited 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.
- Successful track record of integrating complimentary firms through mergers & acquisition. It has successfully integrated number of technology companies in the past few years to streamline its operations and to build a reliable supply chain.
- Successful track record of developing new products – product innovation.
- Strong Brand Portfolio – Over the years Zhaopin Limited has invested in building a strong brand portfolio. The SWOT analysis of Zhaopin Limited just underlines this fact. This brand portfolio can be extremely useful if the organization wants to expand into new product categories.
- Superb Performance in New Markets – Zhaopin Limited 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.
- Highly successful at Go To Market strategies for its products.
- Automation of activities brought consistency of quality to Zhaopin Limited products and has enabled the company to scale up and scale down based on the demand conditions in the market.
- Strong dealer community – It has built a culture among distributor & dealers where the dealers not only promote company’s products but also invest in training the sales team to explain to the customer how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the products.
Weakness of Zhaopin Limited – Internal Strategic Factors
Weakness are the areas where Zhaopin Limited 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.
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- Need more investment in new technologies. Given the scale of expansion and different geographies the company is planning to expand into, Zhaopin Limited needs to put more money in technology to integrate the processes across the board. Right now the investment in technologies is not at par with the vision of the company.
- Limited success outside core business – Even though Zhaopin Limited is one of the leading organizations in its industry it has faced challenges in moving to other product segments with its present culture.
- Organization structure is only compatible with present business model thus limiting expansion in adjacent product segments.
- Not highly successful at integrating firms with different work culture. As mentioned earlier even though Zhaopin Limited is successful at integrating small companies it has its share of failure to merge firms that have different work culture.
- Investment in Research and Development is below the fastest growing players in the industry. Even though Zhaopin Limited is spending above the industry average on Research and Development, it has not been able to compete with the leading players in the industry in terms of innovation. It has come across as a mature firm looking forward to bring out products based on tested features in the market.
- Days inventory is high compare to the competitors – making the company raise more capital to invest in the channel. This can impact the long term growth of Zhaopin Limited
- High attrition rate in work force – compare to other organizations in the industry Zhaopin Limited has a higher attrition rate and have to spend a lot more compare to its competitors on training and development of its employees.
Opportunities for Zhaopin Limited – External Strategic Factors
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- New customers from online channel – Over the past few years the company has invested vast sum of money into the online platform. This investment has opened new sales channel for Zhaopin Limited. In the next few years the company can leverage this opportunity by knowing its customer better and serving their needs using big data analytics.
- Organization’s core competencies can be a success in similar other products field. A comparative example could be - GE healthcare research helped it in developing better Oil drilling machines.
- New environmental policies – The new opportunities will create a level playing field for all the players in the industry. It represent a great opportunity for Zhaopin Limited to drive home its advantage in new technology and gain market share in the new product category.
- Government green drive also opens an opportunity for procurement of Zhaopin Limited products by the state as well as federal government contractors.
- Economic uptick and increase in customer spending, after years of recession and slow growth rate in the industry, is an opportunity for Zhaopin Limited to capture new customers and increase its market share.
- New trends in the consumer behavior can open up new market for the Zhaopin Limited . It provides a great opportunity for the organization to build new revenue streams and diversify into new product categories too.
- The new taxation policy can significantly impact the way of doing business and can open new opportunity for established players such as Zhaopin Limited to increase its profitability.
- Opening up of new markets because of government agreement – the adoption of new technology standard and government free trade agreement has provided Zhaopin Limited an opportunity to enter a new emerging market.
Threats Zhaopin Limited 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.
- New technologies developed by the competitor or market disruptor could be a serious threat to the industry in medium to long term future.
- Rising pay level especially movements such as $15 an hour and increasing prices in the China can lead to serious pressure on profitability of Zhaopin Limited
- Increasing trend toward isolationism in the American economy can lead to similar reaction from other government thus negatively impacting the international sales.
- The company can face lawsuits in various markets given - different laws and continuous fluctuations regarding product standards in those markets.
- Rising raw material can pose a threat to the Zhaopin Limited profitability.
- Shortage of skilled workforce in certain global market represents a threat to steady growth of profits for Zhaopin Limited in those markets.
Limitations of SWOT Analysis for Zhaopin Limited
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 Zhaopin Limited
- 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.
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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Zhaopin Limited
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 Zhaopin Limited 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 Zhaopin Limited
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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Example of Weighted SWOT Analysis
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SWOT Worksheet & Template
If you like to do your own SWOT analysis or want to make your own Weighted SWOT SWOT matrix then feel free to download Fern Fort University SWOT Analysis Template.
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)
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