K & P Intl (675) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electronic Instr. & Controls
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for K & P Intl (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , K & P Intl is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that K & P Intl can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the K & P Intl, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which K & P 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 K & P Intl can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of K & P Intl
2. Improving business portfolio management of K & P Intl
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of K & P Intl
Strengths of K & P Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of K & P Intl are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the K & P 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– K & P Intl is present in almost all the verticals within the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This has provided K & P 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.
Organizational Resilience of K & P Intl
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing K & P Intl does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– K & P Intl is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– K & P 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– K & P Intl has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. K & P 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.
Training and development
– K & P Intl has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– K & P Intl has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of K & P Intl have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For K & P Intl digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. K & P Intl has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that K & P 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.
Learning organization
- K & P 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 K & P Intl is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at K & P Intl emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Electronic Instr. & Controls
– K & P Intl is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Hong Kong. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Hong Kong but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled K & P Intl in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of K & P Intl | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of K & P Intl are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As K & P Intl is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of K & P Intl, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at K & P Intl, in the dynamic environment of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. K & P Intl has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, K & P 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, K & P 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.
Employees’ less understanding of K & P Intl strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of K & P 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of K & P Intl is just above the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, K & P 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Hong Kong, K & P Intl needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, K & P 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though K & P Intl has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. K & P Intl should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
K & P Intl Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of K & P Intl are -
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. K & P Intl can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. K & P Intl can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– K & P Intl can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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 K & P Intl to increase its market reach. K & P 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.
Manufacturing automation
– K & P Intl can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– K & P Intl has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled K & P Intl to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help K & P Intl 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, K & P Intl can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that K & P Intl operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. K & P 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. K & P 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at K & P 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
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 K & P 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, K & P Intl 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– K & P Intl 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, K & P Intl is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. K & P Intl can utilize new technology in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats K & P Intl External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of K & P Intl are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electronic Instr. & Controls industry are lowering. It can presents K & P Intl with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Regulatory challenges
– K & P 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry regulations.
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 K & P Intl in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– K & P Intl 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
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.
Increasing wage structure of K & P Intl
– 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 K & P Intl.
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. K & P Intl needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– K & P 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– K & P Intl has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, K & P Intl needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that K & P Intl is facing in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 K & P Intl business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on K & P 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for K & P Intl in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of K & P Intl Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at K & P 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 K & P 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 K & P 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 K & P 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 K & P Intl needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.