Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat
This case explores the history of Korea's Hyundai Motor Company and the part design management played in Hyundai's rapid rise to become one of the Big Five global car manufacturers. The company only began manufacturing automobiles in the mid-'60s and now commands two major brands (Hyundai and Kia) that have made significant inroads into European and American markets. Part of the DMI collection.
Authors :: Kyung-won Chung, Yu-Jin Kim, Sue Bencuya
Swot Analysis of "Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat" written by Kyung-won Chung, Yu-Jin Kim, Sue Bencuya includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Hyundai Motor facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Change management, Competitive strategy, Design and Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat casestudy better are - – there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hyundai Motor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hyundai Motor 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 Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hyundai Motor
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field.
4. Making a Innovation & Entrepreneurship topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hyundai Motor
Strengths Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hyundai Motor in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat Harvard Business Review case study are -
Training and development
– Hyundai Motor has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Hyundai Motor is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hyundai Motor has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hyundai Motor 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.
Learning organization
- Hyundai Motor 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 Hyundai Motor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hyundai Motor is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Ability to lead change in Innovation & Entrepreneurship field
– Hyundai Motor is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Hyundai Motor in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Hyundai Motor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Hyundai Motor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hyundai Motor is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hyundai Motor in the sector have low bargaining power. Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hyundai Motor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Hyundai Motor is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hyundai Motor has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hyundai Motor in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hyundai Motor 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.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat, it seems that the employees of Hyundai Motor 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Hyundai Motor 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hyundai Motor 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 industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Hyundai Motor 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hyundai Motor products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hyundai Motor needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat, is just above the industry average. Hyundai Motor 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hyundai Motor is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. Hyundai Motor needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hyundai Motor to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Kyung-won Chung, Yu-Jin Kim, Sue Bencuya suggests that, Hyundai Motor 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 industry.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hyundai Motor has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Innovation & Entrepreneurship strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Hyundai Motor can develop new processes and procedures in Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hyundai Motor has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hyundai Motor to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hyundai Motor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hyundai Motor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hyundai Motor 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 Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hyundai Motor can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hyundai Motor can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hyundai Motor has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Hyundai Motor to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study. Hyundai Motor can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Hyundai Motor can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Innovation & Entrepreneurship segment. 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hyundai Motor 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 Hyundai Motor 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, Hyundai Motor 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hyundai Motor is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hyundai Motor 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. Hyundai Motor 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hyundai Motor 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 Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hyundai Motor 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 the industry and other sectors.
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. Hyundai Motor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Hyundai Motor with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hyundai Motor in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry. The Innovation & Entrepreneurship 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hyundai Motor can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat, Hyundai Motor may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Innovation & Entrepreneurship .
Environmental challenges
– Hyundai Motor 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. Hyundai Motor can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship industry.
Increasing wage structure of Hyundai Motor
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Hyundai Motor.
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 Hyundai Motor in the Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hyundai Motor is facing in Innovation & Entrepreneurship sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Hyundai Motor.
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 Hyundai Motor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hyundai Motor 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat 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 the case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat 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 the Harvard case study Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat 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 Hyundai Motor Company: Design Takes the Driver's Seat is 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 Hyundai Motor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.