Keck Seng Malaysia (KSMS) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Keck Seng Malaysia (Malaysia)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Keck Seng Malaysia is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Keck Seng Malaysia

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Keck Seng Malaysia can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Keck Seng Malaysia, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Keck Seng Malaysia can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Keck Seng Malaysia
2. Improving business portfolio management of Keck Seng Malaysia
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Malaysia
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Keck Seng Malaysia

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Strengths of Keck Seng Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Keck Seng Malaysia are -

Organizational Resilience of Keck Seng Malaysia

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Keck Seng Malaysia does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Keck Seng Malaysia is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Malaysia. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Malaysia. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.

High brand equity

– Keck Seng Malaysia has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Keck Seng Malaysia to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Training and development

– Keck Seng Malaysia has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Keck Seng Malaysia is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Keck Seng Malaysia has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry

– Keck Seng Malaysia has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Keck Seng Malaysia to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Keck Seng Malaysia to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Keck Seng Malaysia is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Keck Seng Malaysia digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Learning organization

- Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Keck Seng Malaysia emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Keck Seng Malaysia comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Keck Seng Malaysia has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Keck Seng Malaysia staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

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Weaknesses of Keck Seng Malaysia | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Keck Seng Malaysia are -

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Keck Seng Malaysia has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Keck Seng Malaysia is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Keck Seng Malaysia to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Lack of clear differentiation of Keck Seng Malaysia products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Keck Seng Malaysia needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

High dependence on Keck Seng Malaysia ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Keck Seng Malaysia still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Keck Seng Malaysia has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Employees’ less understanding of Keck Seng Malaysia strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Keck Seng Malaysia is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Keck Seng Malaysia needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Keck Seng Malaysia can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Keck Seng Malaysia is planning to shift buying processes online.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Keck Seng Malaysia, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Keck Seng Malaysia has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Keck Seng Malaysia is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Keck Seng Malaysia needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Keck Seng Malaysia to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

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 Keck Seng Malaysia supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Keck Seng Malaysia is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Keck Seng Malaysia vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Food Processing industry, Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

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Keck Seng Malaysia Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Keck Seng Malaysia are -

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Keck Seng Malaysia has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Keck Seng Malaysia to build a more holistic ecosystem for Keck Seng Malaysia products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Keck Seng Malaysia to increase its market reach. Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Keck Seng Malaysia 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. Keck Seng Malaysia 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

– Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Keck Seng Malaysia has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Keck Seng Malaysia to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Keck Seng Malaysia to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Keck Seng Malaysia can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Manufacturing automation

– Keck Seng Malaysia can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Keck Seng Malaysia can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

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 Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

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Threats Keck Seng Malaysia External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Keck Seng Malaysia are -

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 Keck Seng Malaysia in the Food Processing 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. Keck Seng Malaysia needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

– Keck Seng Malaysia 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. Keck Seng Malaysia can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

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.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Keck Seng Malaysia can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Food Processing industry.

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 Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia.

Increasing wage structure of Keck Seng Malaysia

– 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 Keck Seng Malaysia.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Keck Seng Malaysia has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Keck Seng Malaysia needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.

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. Keck Seng Malaysia 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.

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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Keck Seng Malaysia Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia 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 Keck Seng Malaysia needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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