Kis Wire (2240) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kis Wire (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kis Wire is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions,
there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kis Wire can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kis Wire, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kis Wire
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kis Wire
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kis Wire
Strengths of Kis Wire | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kis Wire are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Kis Wire is present in almost all the verticals within the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This has provided Kis Wire 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.
Analytics focus
– Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kis Wire comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Training and development
– Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kis Wire does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Kis Wire has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kis Wire to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Kis Wire has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kis Wire to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kis Wire to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kis Wire in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Kis Wire has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kis Wire to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kis Wire has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kis Wire have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kis Wire has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kis Wire staying ahead in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Kis Wire is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kis Wire has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kis Wire 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.
Weaknesses of Kis Wire | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kis Wire are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Kis Wire has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ less understanding of Kis Wire strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kis Wire 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kis Wire has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kis Wire is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kis Wire to provide better information regarding Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kis Wire, in the dynamic environment of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kis Wire has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Kis Wire needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kis Wire can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kis Wire is planning to shift buying processes online.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Kis Wire, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Kis Wire has high operating costs in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kis Wire lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Kis Wire Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kis Wire are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kis Wire in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Kis Wire 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Kis Wire can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kis Wire can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kis Wire to increase its market reach. Kis Wire 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kis Wire is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kis Wire can utilize new technology in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kis Wire 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Kis Wire can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kis Wire 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. Kis Wire 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, Kis Wire can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kis Wire operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kis Wire has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kis Wire to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kis Wire to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kis Wire can develop new processes and procedures in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Threats Kis Wire External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kis Wire are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Kis Wire business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kis Wire can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Kis Wire needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Kis Wire in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kis Wire in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Kis Wire with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kis Wire has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kis Wire needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
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.
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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kis Wire may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Kis Wire 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kis Wire Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire 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 Kis Wire needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.