InnoWireless (73490) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for InnoWireless (South Korea)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , InnoWireless is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 InnoWireless

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that InnoWireless can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the InnoWireless, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which InnoWireless 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 InnoWireless can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of InnoWireless
2. Improving business portfolio management of InnoWireless
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 InnoWireless

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

The strengths of InnoWireless are -

Superior customer experience

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

Training and development

– InnoWireless 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.

Innovation driven organization

– InnoWireless is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.

Successful track record of launching new products

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

Analytics focus

– InnoWireless 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)

– InnoWireless has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – InnoWireless 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– InnoWireless has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of InnoWireless have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Learning organization

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

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that InnoWireless 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of InnoWireless 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry

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

High brand equity

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

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

The weaknesses of InnoWireless are -

Lack of clear differentiation of InnoWireless products

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

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, InnoWireless 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of InnoWireless, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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 Communications Equipment industry, InnoWireless 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.

Need for greater diversity

– InnoWireless 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.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As InnoWireless is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry in last five years.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, InnoWireless 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. InnoWireless 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 operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, InnoWireless 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 InnoWireless lucrative customers.

Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at InnoWireless 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

InnoWireless 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.

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

The opportunities of InnoWireless are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Better consumer reach

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

Low interest rates

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

Creating value in data economy

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for InnoWireless 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.

Buying journey improvements

– InnoWireless can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, InnoWireless is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. InnoWireless can utilize new technology in the field of Communications Equipment industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects InnoWireless can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Developing new processes and practices

– InnoWireless 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– InnoWireless 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.

Loyalty marketing

– InnoWireless 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– InnoWireless 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 InnoWireless to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help InnoWireless to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

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 InnoWireless 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.

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

The threats of InnoWireless are -

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– InnoWireless 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.

Increasing wage structure of InnoWireless

– 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 InnoWireless.

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. InnoWireless needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Environmental challenges

– InnoWireless 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. InnoWireless can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on InnoWireless 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, InnoWireless 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 InnoWireless prominent markets.

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.

Regulatory challenges

– InnoWireless 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– InnoWireless has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, InnoWireless 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.

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 InnoWireless.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that InnoWireless is facing in Communications Equipment 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 InnoWireless in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of InnoWireless Template, Example

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

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