KG Mobilians (46440) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Consumer Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for KG Mobilians (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , KG Mobilians is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that KG Mobilians can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the KG Mobilians, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of KG Mobilians
2. Improving business portfolio management of KG Mobilians
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Consumer Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of KG Mobilians
Strengths of KG Mobilians | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of KG Mobilians are -
Learning organization
- KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at KG Mobilians emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that KG Mobilians 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 Consumer Financial Services industry
– KG Mobilians is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of KG Mobilians
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing KG Mobilians does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– KG Mobilians has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled KG Mobilians to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– KG Mobilians is present in almost all the verticals within the Consumer Financial Services industry. This has provided KG Mobilians 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of KG Mobilians in Consumer Financial Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the KG Mobilians 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of KG Mobilians comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Consumer Financial Services 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.
Ability to lead change in Consumer Financial Services
– KG Mobilians is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Consumer Financial Services industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled KG Mobilians 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 Consumer Financial Services industry
– KG Mobilians has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled KG Mobilians to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped KG Mobilians to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– KG Mobilians has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – KG Mobilians staying ahead in the Consumer Financial Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of KG Mobilians | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of KG Mobilians are -
High dependence on KG Mobilians ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of KG Mobilians still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Consumer Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though KG Mobilians has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As KG Mobilians is one of the leading players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, KG Mobilians needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though KG Mobilians has some of the most successful models in the Consumer Financial Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. KG Mobilians should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of KG Mobilians is just above the Consumer Financial Services 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, KG Mobilians has high operating costs in the Consumer Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract KG Mobilians lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of KG Mobilians strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of KG Mobilians 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of KG Mobilians is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Consumer Financial Services industry, but KG Mobilians needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help KG Mobilians to focus more on services in the Consumer Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of KG Mobilians products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, KG Mobilians needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that KG Mobilians needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Consumer Financial Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at KG Mobilians can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as KG Mobilians is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, KG Mobilians has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Consumer Financial Services industry over the last five years. KG Mobilians 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.
KG Mobilians Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of KG Mobilians are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Consumer Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for KG Mobilians in the Consumer Financial Services industry. Now KG Mobilians can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for KG Mobilians 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– KG Mobilians 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help KG Mobilians to increase its market reach. KG Mobilians 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– KG Mobilians can develop new processes and procedures in Consumer Financial Services 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– KG Mobilians has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Consumer Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled KG Mobilians to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help KG Mobilians to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– KG Mobilians can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Consumer Financial Services 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.
Manufacturing automation
– KG Mobilians can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Consumer Financial Services 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 KG Mobilians can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, KG Mobilians 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, KG Mobilians can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that KG Mobilians operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Consumer Financial Services sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of KG Mobilians has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Consumer Financial Services industry. This can help KG Mobilians to build a more holistic ecosystem for KG Mobilians products in the Consumer Financial Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– KG Mobilians 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.
Threats KG Mobilians External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of KG Mobilians are -
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
– KG Mobilians 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. KG Mobilians can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Consumer Financial Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Consumer Financial Services industry are lowering. It can presents KG Mobilians with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Consumer Financial Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that KG Mobilians is facing in Consumer Financial Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, KG Mobilians may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Consumer Financial Services sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– KG Mobilians 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on KG Mobilians 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 Consumer Financial Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– KG Mobilians has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Consumer Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, KG Mobilians needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Consumer Financial Services 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.
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 KG Mobilians business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. KG Mobilians needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Consumer Financial Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. KG Mobilians 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians prominent markets.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– KG Mobilians 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 Consumer Financial Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of KG Mobilians Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians 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 KG Mobilians needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
