Sam Yung Tradi (2810) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sam Yung Tradi (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sam Yung Tradi is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
technology disruption, 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 Sam Yung Tradi can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sam Yung Tradi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sam Yung Tradi
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sam Yung Tradi
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sam Yung Tradi
Strengths of Sam Yung Tradi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sam Yung Tradi are -
Innovation driven organization
– Sam Yung Tradi is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Organizational Resilience of Sam Yung Tradi
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sam Yung Tradi does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sam Yung Tradi 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
– Sam Yung Tradi has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sam Yung Tradi to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Sam Yung Tradi has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sam Yung Tradi in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Sam Yung Tradi has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sam Yung Tradi to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Chemical Manufacturing
– Sam Yung Tradi is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sam Yung Tradi in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Sam Yung Tradi has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sam Yung Tradi to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sam Yung Tradi to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sam Yung Tradi is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Sam Yung Tradi comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Sam Yung Tradi is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Sam Yung Tradi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sam Yung Tradi are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Sam Yung Tradi needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sam Yung Tradi is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sam Yung Tradi to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sam Yung Tradi has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sam Yung Tradi lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sam Yung Tradi is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Sam Yung Tradi needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sam Yung Tradi to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sam Yung Tradi is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sam Yung Tradi, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sam Yung Tradi has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sam Yung Tradi has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sam Yung Tradi should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Need for greater diversity
– Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Sam Yung Tradi Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sam Yung Tradi are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sam Yung Tradi is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sam Yung Tradi can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sam Yung Tradi has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Sam Yung Tradi to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sam Yung Tradi products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sam Yung Tradi can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sam Yung Tradi has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sam Yung Tradi to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sam Yung Tradi to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Sam Yung Tradi 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.
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 Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sam Yung Tradi to increase its market reach. Sam Yung Tradi 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
– Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sam Yung Tradi 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. Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sam Yung Tradi can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Threats Sam Yung Tradi External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sam Yung Tradi are -
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
– Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sam Yung Tradi in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi prominent markets.
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 Sam Yung Tradi in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Sam Yung Tradi with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sam Yung Tradi can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Sam Yung Tradi 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Sam Yung Tradi
– 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 Sam Yung Tradi.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sam Yung Tradi 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sam Yung Tradi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sam Yung Tradi needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
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 Sam Yung Tradi.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sam Yung Tradi Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi 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 Sam Yung Tradi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
