SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kingsmen Creatives Ltd (Singapore)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kingsmen Creatives Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Singapore
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd
Strengths of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kingsmen Creatives Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kingsmen Creatives Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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 Business Services
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in Singapore. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in Singapore but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kingsmen Creatives Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kingsmen Creatives Ltd staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Services 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 Kingsmen Creatives 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
- Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kingsmen Creatives Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business 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.
Weaknesses of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Singapore, Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business Services industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Singapore, Kingsmen Creatives Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kingsmen Creatives Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Kingsmen Creatives Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kingsmen Creatives Ltd to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kingsmen Creatives Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Kingsmen Creatives Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business Services industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kingsmen Creatives Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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 Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kingsmen Creatives Ltd in the Business Services industry. Now Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kingsmen Creatives 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. Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Threats Kingsmen Creatives Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd are -
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 Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business Services sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Kingsmen Creatives 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 Business Services industry regulations.
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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kingsmen Creatives 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.
Environmental challenges
– Kingsmen Creatives Ltd 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. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Kingsmen Creatives Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kingsmen Creatives Ltd is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kingsmen Creatives Ltd in Business Services industry. The Business 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kingsmen Creatives Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kingsmen Creatives Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives 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 Kingsmen Creatives Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
