Cho Kwang Pain (4910) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cho Kwang Pain (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cho Kwang Pain is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is backlash against globalization, wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cho Kwang Pain can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cho Kwang Pain, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cho Kwang Pain
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cho Kwang Pain
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cho Kwang Pain
Strengths of Cho Kwang Pain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cho Kwang Pain are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Cho Kwang Pain has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cho Kwang Pain
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cho Kwang Pain does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Cho Kwang Pain in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cho Kwang Pain emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Cho Kwang Pain is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
High brand equity
– Cho Kwang Pain has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Cho Kwang Pain to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cho Kwang Pain comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Training and development
– Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Cho Kwang Pain has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cho Kwang Pain to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cho Kwang Pain to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Cho Kwang Pain has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cho Kwang Pain staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Cho Kwang Pain | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cho Kwang Pain are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Cho Kwang Pain needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Cho Kwang Pain is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Cho Kwang Pain to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cho Kwang Pain is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, but Cho Kwang Pain needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cho Kwang Pain to focus more on services in the Chemical Manufacturing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Cho Kwang Pain is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Cho Kwang Pain products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Cho Kwang Pain needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cho Kwang Pain has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Cho Kwang Pain needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cho Kwang Pain can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cho Kwang Pain is planning to shift buying processes online.
Cho Kwang Pain Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cho Kwang Pain are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Cho Kwang Pain can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can help Cho Kwang Pain to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cho Kwang Pain products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Cho Kwang Pain can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cho Kwang Pain 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. Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cho Kwang Pain to increase its market reach. Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cho Kwang Pain can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Cho Kwang Pain in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cho Kwang Pain can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Cho Kwang Pain can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Cho Kwang Pain External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cho Kwang Pain are -
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 Cho Kwang Pain business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Cho Kwang Pain in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Cho Kwang Pain with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cho Kwang Pain 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
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. Cho Kwang Pain needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Cho Kwang Pain 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cho Kwang Pain can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Cho Kwang Pain 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. Cho Kwang Pain can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Cho Kwang Pain may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Increasing wage structure of Cho Kwang Pain
– 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 Cho Kwang Pain.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Cho Kwang Pain has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Cho Kwang Pain needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cho Kwang Pain 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Cho Kwang Pain 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cho Kwang Pain Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain 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 Cho Kwang Pain needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
