SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hitejinro Holdings (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hitejinro Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Hitejinro Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hitejinro Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hitejinro Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hitejinro Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hitejinro Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Beverages (Alcoholic) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hitejinro Holdings
Strengths of Hitejinro Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hitejinro Holdings are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Hitejinro Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. This has provided Hitejinro Holdings 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.
High brand equity
– Hitejinro Holdings has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hitejinro Holdings to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Hitejinro Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Organizational Resilience of Hitejinro Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hitejinro Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Hitejinro Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Hitejinro Holdings staying ahead in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– Hitejinro Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Beverages (Alcoholic)
– Hitejinro Holdings is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hitejinro Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Hitejinro Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hitejinro Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hitejinro Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Hitejinro Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hitejinro Holdings are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Hitejinro Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hitejinro Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Beverages (Alcoholic) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hitejinro Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High dependence on Hitejinro Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hitejinro Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hitejinro Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Hitejinro Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings is one of the leading players in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hitejinro Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hitejinro Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Hitejinro Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry over the last five years. Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry, Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Hitejinro Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hitejinro Holdings are -
Loyalty marketing
– Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hitejinro Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. This can help Hitejinro Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hitejinro Holdings products in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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 Hitejinro Holdings 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
– Hitejinro Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Beverages (Alcoholic) 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
– Hitejinro Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hitejinro Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hitejinro Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hitejinro Holdings in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. Now Hitejinro Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Hitejinro Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hitejinro Holdings 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hitejinro Holdings 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, Hitejinro Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hitejinro Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
Threats Hitejinro Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hitejinro Holdings are -
Environmental challenges
– Hitejinro Holdings 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. Hitejinro Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hitejinro Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hitejinro Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hitejinro Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Hitejinro Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hitejinro Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hitejinro Holdings 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 Beverages (Alcoholic) industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Beverages (Alcoholic) industry are lowering. It can presents Hitejinro Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector.
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 Hitejinro Holdings.
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 Hitejinro Holdings in the Beverages (Alcoholic) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Hitejinro Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hitejinro Holdings in Beverages (Alcoholic) industry. The Beverages (Alcoholic) 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hitejinro Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings 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 Hitejinro Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
