SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kmn Capital-M (Israel)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kmn Capital-M is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kmn Capital-M can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kmn Capital-M, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kmn Capital-M
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kmn Capital-M
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Israel
4. Making a Insurance (Life) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kmn Capital-M
Strengths of Kmn Capital-M | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kmn Capital-M are -
Innovation driven organization
– Kmn Capital-M is one of the most innovative firm in Insurance (Life) sector.
Digital Transformation in Insurance (Life) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kmn Capital-M digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kmn Capital-M 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kmn Capital-M has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kmn Capital-M 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.
Ability to lead change in Insurance (Life)
– Kmn Capital-M is one of the leading players in the Insurance (Life) industry in Israel. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Insurance (Life) industry in Israel but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kmn Capital-M in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kmn Capital-M 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kmn Capital-M in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Kmn Capital-M has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kmn Capital-M to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Kmn Capital-M has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Organizational Resilience of Kmn Capital-M
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kmn Capital-M does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Kmn Capital-M 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 Insurance (Life) industry. The technology infrastructure of Israel 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.
Learning organization
- Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kmn Capital-M emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kmn Capital-M has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kmn Capital-M staying ahead in the Insurance (Life) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kmn Capital-M 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.
Weaknesses of Kmn Capital-M | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kmn Capital-M are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kmn Capital-M is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kmn Capital-M to provide better information regarding Insurance (Life) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
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 Kmn Capital-M supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kmn Capital-M is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kmn Capital-M vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kmn Capital-M has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Insurance (Life) industry over the last five years. Kmn Capital-M 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kmn Capital-M, in the dynamic environment of Insurance (Life) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kmn Capital-M has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Insurance (Life) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kmn Capital-M 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’ less understanding of Kmn Capital-M strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M is just above the Insurance (Life) 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Insurance (Life) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Israel, Kmn Capital-M 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 Insurance (Life) industry.
High dependence on Kmn Capital-M ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kmn Capital-M still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Insurance (Life) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kmn Capital-M has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kmn Capital-M 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kmn Capital-M products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kmn Capital-M needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Kmn Capital-M Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kmn Capital-M are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kmn Capital-M to increase its market reach. Kmn Capital-M 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Kmn Capital-M 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kmn Capital-M can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kmn Capital-M to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kmn Capital-M 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.
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. Kmn Capital-M can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kmn Capital-M is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kmn Capital-M can utilize new technology in the field of Insurance (Life) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kmn Capital-M has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Insurance (Life) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kmn Capital-M to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kmn Capital-M to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Insurance (Life) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kmn Capital-M in the Insurance (Life) industry. Now Kmn Capital-M can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Kmn Capital-M can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Insurance (Life) 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 Kmn Capital-M has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Insurance (Life) industry. This can help Kmn Capital-M to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kmn Capital-M products in the Insurance (Life) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kmn Capital-M can develop new processes and procedures in Insurance (Life) 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.
Threats Kmn Capital-M External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kmn Capital-M are -
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Insurance (Life) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kmn Capital-M can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Kmn Capital-M business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Kmn Capital-M.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kmn Capital-M may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Insurance (Life) sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Insurance (Life) industry are lowering. It can presents Kmn Capital-M with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Insurance (Life) sector.
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 Kmn Capital-M in the Insurance (Life) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Kmn Capital-M needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Insurance (Life) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kmn Capital-M 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 Insurance (Life) industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kmn Capital-M 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 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 Kmn Capital-M
– 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 Kmn Capital-M.
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. Kmn Capital-M 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kmn Capital-M Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M 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 Kmn Capital-M needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
