SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices
2. Improving business portfolio management of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices
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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices
Strengths of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices are -
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Learning organization
- Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.
Training and development
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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.
Organizational Resilience of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Communications Equipment industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices lucrative customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Equipment industry, but Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to focus more on services in the Communications Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices are -
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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Communications Equipment industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices in the Communications Equipment industry. Now Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Threats Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices are -
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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Environmental challenges
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment 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.
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. Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Communications Equipment sector.
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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices 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 Lightron Fiber-Optic Devices needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.