SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for KSH Holdings Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , KSH Holdings Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that KSH Holdings Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the KSH Holdings Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of KSH Holdings Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of KSH Holdings Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of KSH Holdings Ltd
Strengths of KSH Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of KSH Holdings Ltd are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– KSH Holdings Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled KSH Holdings Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped KSH Holdings Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– KSH Holdings Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – KSH Holdings Ltd staying ahead in the Construction Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For KSH Holdings Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– KSH Holdings Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of KSH Holdings Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of KSH Holdings Ltd in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– KSH Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Singapore. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Singapore. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Diverse revenue streams
– KSH Holdings Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Training and development
– KSH Holdings Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that KSH Holdings Ltd 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
- KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at KSH Holdings Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of KSH Holdings Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of KSH Holdings Ltd are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, KSH Holdings Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help KSH Holdings Ltd to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, KSH Holdings Ltd has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract KSH Holdings Ltd lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of KSH Holdings Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, KSH Holdings Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As KSH Holdings Ltd is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. KSH Holdings Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of KSH Holdings Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of KSH Holdings Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but KSH Holdings Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help KSH Holdings Ltd to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
KSH Holdings Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of KSH Holdings Ltd 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. KSH Holdings Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for KSH Holdings Ltd in the Construction Services industry. Now KSH Holdings Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Developing new processes and practices
– KSH Holdings Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Construction Services 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, KSH Holdings Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that KSH Holdings Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of KSH Holdings Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help KSH Holdings Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for KSH Holdings Ltd products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. KSH Holdings Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help KSH Holdings Ltd to increase its market reach. KSH Holdings Ltd 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
– KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. KSH Holdings Ltd 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. KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, KSH Holdings Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. KSH Holdings Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– KSH Holdings Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Threats KSH Holdings Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of KSH Holdings Ltd are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for KSH Holdings Ltd in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.
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 KSH Holdings Ltd.
Regulatory challenges
– KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. KSH Holdings Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. KSH Holdings Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– KSH Holdings Ltd 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that KSH Holdings Ltd is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on KSH Holdings Ltd 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
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 KSH Holdings Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of KSH Holdings Ltd
– 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 KSH Holdings Ltd.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of KSH Holdings Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd 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 KSH Holdings Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.