Samchully (4690) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Natural Gas Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Samchully (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Samchully is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, technology disruption,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Samchully can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Samchully, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Samchully 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 Samchully can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Samchully
2. Improving business portfolio management of Samchully
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Natural Gas Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Samchully
Strengths of Samchully | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Samchully are -
Ability to lead change in Natural Gas Utilities
– Samchully is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Samchully in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Samchully
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Samchully does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Samchully 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.
High brand equity
– Samchully has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Samchully to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Learning organization
- Samchully 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 Samchully is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Samchully emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– Samchully has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Samchully to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Samchully to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Samchully in the Utilities sector have low bargaining power. Samchully has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Samchully to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Samchully has one of the best training and development program in Utilities 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Samchully has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Natural Gas Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Samchully have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Samchully is one of the most innovative firm in Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Samchully comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Weaknesses of Samchully | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Samchully are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Samchully has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Natural Gas Utilities industry over the last five years. Samchully 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Samchully 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Samchully is one of the leading players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Natural Gas Utilities industry in last five years.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry using digital technology.
Employees’ less understanding of Samchully strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Samchully 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Samchully 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Natural Gas Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
High dependence on Samchully ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Samchully still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Natural Gas Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Samchully has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, Samchully 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.
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 Samchully supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Samchully is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Samchully vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Samchully has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Samchully Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Samchully are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Samchully in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Natural Gas Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Samchully can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Samchully 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 Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Samchully can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Samchully can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Samchully operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Natural Gas Utilities sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Samchully has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Natural Gas Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Samchully to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Samchully to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Samchully 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Samchully 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 Samchully to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Samchully to increase its market reach. Samchully 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Samchully 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Samchully 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, Samchully is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Samchully can utilize new technology in the field of Natural Gas Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Samchully External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Samchully are -
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 Samchully in the Natural Gas Utilities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Samchully 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Samchully is facing in Natural Gas Utilities 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. Samchully 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Natural Gas Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents Samchully with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Natural Gas Utilities sector.
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. Samchully needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Natural Gas Utilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Natural Gas Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Samchully 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 Samchully in Natural Gas Utilities industry. The Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Increasing wage structure of Samchully
– 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 Samchully.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Samchully has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Natural Gas Utilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Samchully needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Natural Gas Utilities 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Samchully 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 Natural Gas Utilities industry.
Environmental challenges
– Samchully 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. Samchully can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Natural Gas Utilities industry.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Samchully Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Samchully 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 Samchully 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 Samchully 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 Samchully 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 Samchully needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.