Imarketkorea (122900) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Catalog & Mail Order)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Imarketkorea (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Imarketkorea is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Imarketkorea can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Imarketkorea, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Imarketkorea
2. Improving business portfolio management of Imarketkorea
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Imarketkorea
Strengths of Imarketkorea | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Imarketkorea are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Imarketkorea has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Imarketkorea 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Imarketkorea comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Organizational Resilience of Imarketkorea
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Imarketkorea does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Imarketkorea in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Imarketkorea emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Imarketkorea is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Imarketkorea has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Imarketkorea have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Imarketkorea has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Imarketkorea staying ahead in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order)
– Imarketkorea is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Imarketkorea in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Imarketkorea is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This has provided Imarketkorea 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Imarketkorea has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Imarketkorea to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Imarketkorea to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Imarketkorea is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Weaknesses of Imarketkorea | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Imarketkorea are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Imarketkorea is just above the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Imarketkorea needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Imarketkorea has high operating costs in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Imarketkorea lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Imarketkorea needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Imarketkorea can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Imarketkorea is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Imarketkorea is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Imarketkorea vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Imarketkorea is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, but Imarketkorea needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Imarketkorea to focus more on services in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Imarketkorea has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Imarketkorea products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Imarketkorea needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Imarketkorea strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Imarketkorea 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.
Imarketkorea Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Imarketkorea are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Imarketkorea can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Imarketkorea in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Now Imarketkorea can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Imarketkorea is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Imarketkorea can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Imarketkorea has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Imarketkorea to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Imarketkorea to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Imarketkorea can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Imarketkorea operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Imarketkorea to increase its market reach. Imarketkorea 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Imarketkorea can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Imarketkorea can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Imarketkorea 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Imarketkorea 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. Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Imarketkorea are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Imarketkorea can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Imarketkorea 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. Imarketkorea can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Imarketkorea may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Imarketkorea has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Imarketkorea needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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
– Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry regulations.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Imarketkorea in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry are lowering. It can presents Imarketkorea with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Imarketkorea is facing in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Imarketkorea 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.
Increasing wage structure of Imarketkorea
– 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 Imarketkorea.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Imarketkorea Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.