Moorim Paper (9200) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Paper & Paper Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Moorim Paper (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Moorim Paper is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, wage bills are increasing,
increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Moorim Paper can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Moorim Paper, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Moorim Paper
2. Improving business portfolio management of Moorim Paper
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Paper & Paper Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Moorim Paper
Strengths of Moorim Paper | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Moorim Paper are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Moorim Paper in Paper & Paper Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Moorim Paper has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Moorim Paper to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Moorim Paper in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Moorim Paper has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Moorim Paper to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Moorim Paper has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Moorim Paper 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.
Training and development
– Moorim Paper 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
– Moorim Paper is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Moorim Paper has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Moorim Paper staying ahead in the Paper & Paper Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Paper & Paper Products
– Moorim Paper is one of the leading players in the Paper & Paper Products industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Paper & Paper Products industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Moorim Paper in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Moorim Paper is one of the most innovative firm in Paper & Paper Products sector.
Analytics focus
– Moorim Paper 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 Paper & Paper Products 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.
Organizational Resilience of Moorim Paper
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Moorim Paper does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Moorim Paper has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Paper & Paper Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Moorim Paper have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Moorim Paper | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Moorim Paper are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Moorim Paper is just above the Paper & Paper Products 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, Moorim Paper needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Moorim Paper 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Moorim Paper has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Paper & Paper Products 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Moorim Paper has high operating costs in the Paper & Paper Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Moorim Paper lucrative customers.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Moorim Paper has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Paper & Paper Products industry over the last five years. Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Moorim Paper still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Paper & Paper Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Moorim Paper has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Moorim Paper supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Moorim Paper is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Moorim Paper vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Paper & Paper Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Moorim Paper 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Moorim Paper needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Paper & Paper Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Moorim Paper can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Moorim Paper is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Moorim Paper has some of the most successful models in the Paper & Paper Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Moorim Paper should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Moorim Paper Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Moorim Paper are -
Buying journey improvements
– Moorim Paper can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Moorim Paper has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Paper & Paper Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Moorim Paper to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Moorim Paper to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Moorim Paper 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 Paper & Paper Products industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Moorim Paper 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Moorim Paper to increase its market reach. Moorim Paper 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Moorim Paper can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Moorim Paper operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Paper & Paper Products sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Paper & Paper Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Moorim Paper 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. Moorim Paper 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Paper & Paper Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Moorim Paper can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Moorim Paper 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Moorim Paper 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Moorim Paper can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Moorim Paper can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Paper & Paper Products 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 Moorim Paper External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Moorim Paper are -
Environmental challenges
– Moorim Paper 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. Moorim Paper can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Paper & Paper Products industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Moorim Paper may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Paper & Paper Products sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Moorim Paper is facing in Paper & Paper Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Moorim Paper in the Paper & Paper Products sector and impact the bottomline 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 Moorim Paper.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Moorim Paper in Paper & Paper Products industry. The Paper & Paper Products 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.
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 Moorim Paper business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Paper & Paper Products industry are lowering. It can presents Moorim Paper with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Paper & Paper Products sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Moorim Paper 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
– Moorim Paper has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Paper & Paper Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Moorim Paper needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Paper & Paper Products 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.
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.
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. Moorim Paper needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Paper & Paper Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Moorim Paper Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper 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 Moorim Paper needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.