CMS Edu (225330) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CMS Edu (South Korea)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CMS Edu is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CMS Edu

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CMS Edu can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CMS Edu, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CMS Edu 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of CMS Edu can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CMS Edu
2. Improving business portfolio management of CMS Edu
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CMS Edu

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

The strengths of CMS Edu are -

Ability to lead change in Business Services

– CMS Edu is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Business Services industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled CMS Edu in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Diverse revenue streams

– CMS Edu is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided CMS Edu 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Successful track record of launching new products

– CMS Edu has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. CMS Edu 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.

Organizational Resilience of CMS Edu

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CMS Edu does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Training and development

– CMS Edu has one of the best training and development program in Services 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 CMS Edu in the Services sector have low bargaining power. CMS Edu has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps CMS Edu to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of CMS Edu in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High brand equity

– CMS Edu has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled CMS Edu to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that CMS Edu 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.

Analytics focus

– CMS Edu 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 Business Services 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.

Learning organization

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

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

The weaknesses of CMS Edu are -

Need for greater diversity

– CMS Edu 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that CMS Edu needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CMS Edu can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CMS Edu is planning to shift buying processes online.

High dependence on CMS Edu ‘s star products

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

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of CMS Edu, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services 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.

Slow decision making process

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

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

Products dominated business model

– Even though CMS Edu has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CMS Edu should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Lack of clear differentiation of CMS Edu products

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

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, CMS Edu has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract CMS Edu lucrative customers.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of CMS Edu is just above the Business 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, CMS Edu 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.

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

The opportunities of CMS Edu are -

Low interest rates

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

Loyalty marketing

– CMS Edu 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. CMS Edu 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. CMS Edu 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.

Buying journey improvements

– CMS Edu can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help CMS Edu to increase its market reach. CMS Edu 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of CMS Edu has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help CMS Edu to build a more holistic ecosystem for CMS Edu products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– CMS Edu can develop new processes and procedures in Business 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

– CMS Edu has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled CMS Edu to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CMS Edu 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 CMS Edu 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.

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 CMS Edu 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– CMS Edu 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. CMS Edu can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

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

The threats of CMS Edu are -

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 CMS Edu in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Increasing wage structure of CMS Edu

– 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 CMS Edu.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CMS Edu 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 CMS Edu prominent markets.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that CMS Edu is facing in Business 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, CMS Edu may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.

Environmental challenges

– CMS Edu 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. CMS Edu can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents CMS Edu with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.

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.

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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– CMS Edu has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, CMS Edu needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business 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.

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. CMS Edu needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

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 CMS Edu.

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. CMS Edu 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of CMS Edu Template, Example

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

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