Eugene (23410) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction - Raw Materials
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eugene (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eugene is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eugene can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eugene, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eugene 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 Eugene can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eugene
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eugene
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Construction - Raw Materials sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eugene
Strengths of Eugene | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eugene are -
Ability to lead change in Construction - Raw Materials
– Eugene is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Eugene in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Analytics focus
– Eugene 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 - Raw Materials 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eugene has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eugene 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Eugene has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Eugene staying ahead in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eugene 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 Eugene comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction - Raw Materials industry
– Eugene is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Eugene is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Eugene is one of the most innovative firm in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Learning organization
- Eugene 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 Eugene is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eugene emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Eugene 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 Eugene 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.
Weaknesses of Eugene | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eugene are -
Need for greater diversity
– Eugene 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eugene has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eugene has some of the most successful models in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eugene should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Eugene, in the dynamic environment of Construction - Raw Materials industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Eugene has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Eugene is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Eugene to provide better information regarding Construction - Raw Materials products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Eugene ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eugene still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction - Raw Materials industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eugene has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eugene is one of the leading players in the Construction - Raw Materials industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction - Raw Materials industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Eugene strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Eugene 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.
Skills based hiring in Construction - Raw Materials industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eugene 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.
Eugene Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eugene are -
Loyalty marketing
– Eugene 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Eugene 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eugene has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction - Raw Materials industry. This can help Eugene to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eugene products in the Construction - Raw Materials industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Eugene can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Construction - Raw Materials industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eugene 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. Eugene 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eugene can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eugene operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Eugene 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 Eugene to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eugene is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eugene can utilize new technology in the field of Construction - Raw Materials industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Eugene can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eugene has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction - Raw Materials sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eugene to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eugene to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Eugene to increase its market reach. Eugene 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.
Threats Eugene External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eugene 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. Eugene needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction - Raw Materials industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eugene is facing in Construction - Raw Materials sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Eugene will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
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, Eugene 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 Eugene prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Eugene 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 - Raw Materials industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Eugene 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. Eugene can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction - Raw Materials industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eugene 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eugene 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 - Raw Materials sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction - Raw Materials industry are lowering. It can presents Eugene with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction - Raw Materials sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eugene has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction - Raw Materials industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eugene needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction - Raw Materials 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eugene Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
