Koh Brothers Group Ltd (KBRO) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Koh Brothers Group Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Koh Brothers Group Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Koh Brothers Group Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Koh Brothers Group Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Koh Brothers Group Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Koh Brothers Group Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd
Strengths of Koh Brothers Group Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Koh Brothers Group Ltd are -
Innovation driven organization
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Koh Brothers Group 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Koh Brothers Group 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
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Koh Brothers Group 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Koh Brothers Group 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Koh Brothers Group Ltd in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Koh Brothers Group Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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 Construction Services industry. The technology infrastructure of Singapore 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.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Koh Brothers Group Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Koh Brothers Group 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.
Training and development
– Koh Brothers Group 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.
Organizational Resilience of Koh Brothers Group Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Koh Brothers Group Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Koh Brothers Group Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Koh Brothers Group Ltd are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Koh Brothers Group 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Koh Brothers Group 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Koh Brothers Group 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Koh Brothers Group 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Koh Brothers Group 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 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Koh Brothers Group Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Koh Brothers Group Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Koh Brothers Group 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. Koh Brothers Group Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Koh Brothers Group Ltd is just above the Construction Services 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd lucrative customers.
High dependence on Koh Brothers Group Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Koh Brothers Group Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Koh Brothers Group Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Koh Brothers Group 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.
Koh Brothers Group Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Koh Brothers Group Ltd are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Koh Brothers Group Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Koh Brothers Group Ltd products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Koh Brothers Group 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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, Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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, Koh Brothers Group Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Koh Brothers Group 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.
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. Koh Brothers Group 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. Koh Brothers Group 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Koh Brothers Group Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Koh Brothers Group 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Koh Brothers Group Ltd to increase its market reach. Koh Brothers Group 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Koh Brothers Group Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Koh Brothers Group Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Koh Brothers Group Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Threats Koh Brothers Group Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Koh Brothers Group Ltd are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Koh Brothers Group 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Koh Brothers Group 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.
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. Koh Brothers Group Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Koh Brothers Group Ltd is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Koh Brothers Group Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services sector.
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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd.
Increasing wage structure of Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Koh Brothers Group Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Koh Brothers Group Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Koh Brothers Group Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Koh Brothers Group 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Koh Brothers Group Ltd can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Koh Brothers Group Ltd prominent markets.
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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd in the Construction Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Koh Brothers Group 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Koh Brothers Group Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group 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 Koh Brothers Group Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.