Kangwon Land (35250) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Casinos & Gaming
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kangwon Land (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kangwon Land is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kangwon Land can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kangwon Land, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kangwon Land
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kangwon Land
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Casinos & Gaming sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kangwon Land
Strengths of Kangwon Land | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kangwon Land are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Casinos & Gaming industry
– Kangwon Land has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kangwon Land to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kangwon Land to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Kangwon Land is one of the most innovative firm in Casinos & Gaming sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kangwon Land has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kangwon Land staying ahead in the Casinos & Gaming industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Casinos & Gaming industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kangwon Land digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kangwon Land 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kangwon Land in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Kangwon Land has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kangwon Land to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kangwon Land comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Ability to lead change in Casinos & Gaming
– Kangwon Land is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Casinos & Gaming industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kangwon Land in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kangwon Land is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry in South Korea. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in South Korea. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Strong track record of project management in the Casinos & Gaming industry
– Kangwon Land is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Kangwon Land
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kangwon Land does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kangwon Land 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.
Analytics focus
– Kangwon Land 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 Casinos & Gaming industry. The technology infrastructure of South Korea 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 Kangwon Land | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kangwon Land are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Kangwon Land has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Casinos & Gaming industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kangwon Land 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Kangwon Land, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Casinos & Gaming 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Kangwon Land has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Casinos & Gaming industry, Kangwon Land 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kangwon Land is one of the leading players in the Casinos & Gaming industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Casinos & Gaming industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kangwon Land is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kangwon Land to provide better information regarding Casinos & Gaming products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kangwon Land needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Casinos & Gaming industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kangwon Land can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kangwon Land is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on Kangwon Land ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kangwon Land still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Casinos & Gaming industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kangwon Land has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kangwon Land 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 Casinos & Gaming industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Kangwon Land has high operating costs in the Casinos & Gaming industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kangwon Land lucrative customers.
Kangwon Land Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kangwon Land are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kangwon Land 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 Casinos & Gaming industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kangwon Land to increase its market reach. Kangwon Land 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Casinos & Gaming industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kangwon Land can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Casinos & Gaming industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kangwon Land 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. Kangwon Land 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kangwon Land has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Casinos & Gaming industry. This can help Kangwon Land to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kangwon Land products in the Casinos & Gaming industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Kangwon Land 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.
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 Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Casinos & Gaming industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kangwon Land in the Casinos & Gaming industry. Now Kangwon Land can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kangwon Land can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kangwon Land operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Casinos & Gaming sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kangwon Land can develop new processes and procedures in Casinos & Gaming 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kangwon Land in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Casinos & Gaming industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Kangwon Land External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kangwon Land are -
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. Kangwon Land needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Casinos & Gaming industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Kangwon Land 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 Casinos & Gaming industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Casinos & Gaming industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kangwon Land can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kangwon Land in Casinos & Gaming industry. The Casinos & Gaming 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.
Environmental challenges
– Kangwon Land 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. Kangwon Land can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Casinos & Gaming industry.
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. Kangwon Land 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kangwon Land has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Casinos & Gaming industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kangwon Land needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Casinos & Gaming 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Kangwon Land 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 Casinos & Gaming industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Casinos & Gaming industry are lowering. It can presents Kangwon Land with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Casinos & Gaming sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kangwon Land may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Casinos & Gaming sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kangwon Land is facing in Casinos & Gaming sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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 Kangwon Land.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kangwon Land Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land 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 Kangwon Land needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
