M CORSET (204020) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Apparel/Accessories
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for M CORSET (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , M CORSET is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that M CORSET can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the M CORSET, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which M CORSET 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 M CORSET can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of M CORSET
2. Improving business portfolio management of M CORSET
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Apparel/Accessories sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of M CORSET
Strengths of M CORSET | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of M CORSET are -
Strong track record of project management in the Apparel/Accessories industry
– M CORSET is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the M CORSET are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of M CORSET
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing M CORSET does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that M CORSET 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– M CORSET has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. M CORSET 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– M CORSET is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Training and development
– M CORSET has one of the best training and development program in Consumer 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.
Analytics focus
– M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– M CORSET is present in almost all the verticals within the Apparel/Accessories industry. This has provided M CORSET 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)
– M CORSET has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – M CORSET staying ahead in the Apparel/Accessories industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Digital Transformation in Apparel/Accessories industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For M CORSET digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. M CORSET has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of M CORSET in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. M CORSET has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps M CORSET to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of M CORSET | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of M CORSET are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
M CORSET has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of M CORSET is just above the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Skills based hiring in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at M CORSET 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As M CORSET is one of the leading players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Apparel/Accessories industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, M CORSET is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help M CORSET to provide better information regarding Apparel/Accessories products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, M CORSET needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of M CORSET is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Apparel/Accessories industry, but M CORSET needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help M CORSET to focus more on services in the Apparel/Accessories industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at M CORSET, in the dynamic environment of Apparel/Accessories industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. M CORSET has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that M CORSET needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Apparel/Accessories industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at M CORSET can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as M CORSET is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Apparel/Accessories industry, M CORSET 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories industry using digital technology.
M CORSET Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of M CORSET are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help M CORSET to increase its market reach. M CORSET 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for M CORSET 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Apparel/Accessories industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. M CORSET 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. M CORSET 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, M CORSET 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.
Buying journey improvements
– M CORSET can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Apparel/Accessories industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. M CORSET can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Apparel/Accessories industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for M CORSET in the Apparel/Accessories industry. Now M CORSET can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 M CORSET 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.
Loyalty marketing
– M CORSET 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for M CORSET 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 M CORSET to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, M CORSET can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that M CORSET operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Apparel/Accessories sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, M CORSET 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 M CORSET to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– M CORSET 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.
Threats M CORSET External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of M CORSET are -
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. M CORSET needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Apparel/Accessories industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories industry regulations.
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. M CORSET 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Apparel/Accessories industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories industry are lowering. It can presents M CORSET with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Apparel/Accessories sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that M CORSET is facing in Apparel/Accessories sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories industry.
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 M CORSET.
Consumer confidence and its impact on M CORSET 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 Apparel/Accessories industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, M CORSET 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 M CORSET prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– M CORSET has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Apparel/Accessories industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, M CORSET needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Apparel/Accessories 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– M CORSET 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. M CORSET can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Apparel/Accessories industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of M CORSET Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at M CORSET 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 M CORSET 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 M CORSET 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 M CORSET 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 M CORSET needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.