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Aprogen (109960) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Aprogen (South Korea)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Aprogen is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing energy prices, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Aprogen


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Aprogen can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Aprogen, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Aprogen 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 Aprogen can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Aprogen
2. Improving business portfolio management of Aprogen
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Aprogen




Strengths of Aprogen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Aprogen are -

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Aprogen comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.

Learning organization

- Aprogen 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 Aprogen is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Aprogen emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Training and development

– Aprogen has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Aprogen 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.

Digital Transformation in Communications Equipment industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Aprogen digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Aprogen 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry

– Aprogen is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry

– Aprogen has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Aprogen to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Aprogen to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Analytics focus

– Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment 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)

– Aprogen has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Aprogen staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Aprogen 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Aprogen in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Diverse revenue streams

– Aprogen is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Aprogen 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.






Weaknesses of Aprogen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Aprogen are -

Employees’ less understanding of Aprogen strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Aprogen 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.

High dependence on Aprogen ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Aprogen still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Aprogen has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Aprogen 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Aprogen products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Aprogen needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Need for greater diversity

– Aprogen 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment industry.

Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Aprogen has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Aprogen is just above the Communications Equipment 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of South Korea, Aprogen needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

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 Aprogen supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Aprogen is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Aprogen vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Aprogen has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. Aprogen 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.




Aprogen Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Aprogen are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Aprogen 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 Aprogen to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Communications Equipment industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Aprogen 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. Aprogen 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Aprogen 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment industry.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Aprogen has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Aprogen to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Aprogen to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Aprogen 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.

Developing new processes and practices

– Aprogen can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Equipment 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Aprogen 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Aprogen can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Equipment 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.

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 Aprogen 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Aprogen can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Aprogen operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.

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. Aprogen can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Aprogen in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.




Threats Aprogen External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Aprogen are -

Consumer confidence and its impact on Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment industry and other sectors.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Aprogen 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 Aprogen 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. Aprogen 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Aprogen has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Aprogen needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.

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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Aprogen in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.

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 Aprogen.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Aprogen can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Increasing wage structure of Aprogen

– 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 Aprogen.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Aprogen 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 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

– Aprogen 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 Communications Equipment industry.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Aprogen Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Aprogen 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 Aprogen 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 Aprogen 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 Aprogen 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 Aprogen needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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