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 – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, 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 -
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.
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.
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.
Analytics focus
– Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Training and development
– Imarketkorea has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
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.
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.
High brand equity
– Imarketkorea has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Imarketkorea to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Imarketkorea 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Imarketkorea is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
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.
Weaknesses of Imarketkorea | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Imarketkorea are -
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Imarketkorea is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Imarketkorea to provide better information regarding Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Imarketkorea is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Imarketkorea, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Imarketkorea 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 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.
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.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Imarketkorea has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Imarketkorea should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Imarketkorea, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Imarketkorea has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry over the last five years. Imarketkorea 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.
Imarketkorea Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Imarketkorea are -
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.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Imarketkorea 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
– 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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Imarketkorea can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Imarketkorea has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. This can help Imarketkorea to build a more holistic ecosystem for Imarketkorea products in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Imarketkorea 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.
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.
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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Imarketkorea can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Imarketkorea 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
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.
Threats Imarketkorea External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Imarketkorea are -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Imarketkorea business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Imarketkorea 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 Imarketkorea prominent markets.
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. Imarketkorea 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.
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 Imarketkorea.
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.
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.
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.