Maniker (27740) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maniker (South Korea)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maniker is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maniker

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

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

The strengths of Maniker are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Maniker in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Maniker has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Maniker to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Maniker in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock

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

Organizational Resilience of Maniker

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

Innovation driven organization

– Maniker is one of the most innovative firm in Fish/Livestock sector.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Maniker is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Maniker is present in almost all the verticals within the Fish/Livestock industry. This has provided Maniker 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fish/Livestock industry

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

High brand equity

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

Training and development

– Maniker has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.

Learning organization

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

Strong track record of project management in the Fish/Livestock industry

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

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

The weaknesses of Maniker are -

Skills based hiring in Fish/Livestock industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maniker 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Maniker products

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

High operating costs

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

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Maniker has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fish/Livestock industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

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

Need for greater diversity

– Maniker 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.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Maniker 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 Fish/Livestock industry using digital technology.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Maniker is just above the Fish/Livestock 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Maniker 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, Maniker 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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Maniker Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Maniker are -

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Maniker 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 Maniker to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

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

Creating value in data economy

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

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Maniker 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Low interest rates

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Maniker can develop new processes and procedures in Fish/Livestock 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Maniker 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.

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 Maniker 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Increase in government spending

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

Leveraging digital technologies

– Maniker 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maniker in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now Maniker can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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

The threats of Maniker are -

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Maniker is facing in Fish/Livestock sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

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

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 Maniker business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Easy access to finance

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

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Maniker.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Maniker 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.

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 Maniker in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maniker in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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 wage structure of Maniker

– 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 Maniker.

Environmental challenges

– Maniker 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. Maniker can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry.

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. Maniker 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

– Maniker has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fish/Livestock industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Maniker needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fish/Livestock 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maniker Template, Example

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

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