SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Geno Focus (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Geno Focus is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Geno Focus can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Geno Focus, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Geno Focus
2. Improving business portfolio management of Geno Focus
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 Geno Focus
Strengths of Geno Focus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Geno Focus are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Geno Focus 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.
Organizational Resilience of Geno Focus
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Geno Focus does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Geno Focus has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Geno Focus staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Geno Focus 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Geno Focus 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Geno Focus is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Geno Focus 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Geno Focus has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Geno Focus have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Geno Focus 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.
Analytics focus
– Geno Focus 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Geno Focus digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Geno Focus has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Geno Focus 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Geno Focus in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Geno Focus has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Geno Focus to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Geno Focus | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Geno Focus are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Geno Focus is just above the Chemical Manufacturing 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Geno Focus has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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 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 Geno Focus supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Geno Focus is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Geno Focus vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Geno Focus has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Geno Focus 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Geno Focus, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Geno Focus 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Geno Focus is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Geno Focus 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, Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus lucrative customers.
High dependence on Geno Focus ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Geno Focus still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemical Manufacturing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Geno Focus has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Geno Focus is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Geno Focus needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Geno Focus to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Geno Focus, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Geno Focus has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Geno Focus Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Geno Focus are -
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. Geno Focus 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. Geno Focus 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Geno Focus to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Geno Focus 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.
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. Geno Focus can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Geno Focus 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Geno Focus can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Geno Focus 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Geno Focus 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Geno Focus has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Geno Focus to build a more holistic ecosystem for Geno Focus products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Geno Focus is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Geno Focus 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Geno Focus in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Geno Focus can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Manufacturing automation
– Geno Focus can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Threats Geno Focus External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Geno Focus are -
Increasing wage structure of Geno Focus
– 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 Geno Focus.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Geno Focus 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Geno Focus has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Geno Focus 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.
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.
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 Geno Focus.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Geno Focus 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Geno Focus 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Geno Focus is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Geno Focus 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
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.
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. Geno Focus can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Geno Focus needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Geno Focus in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Geno Focus Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus 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 Geno Focus needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.