Unick (11320) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Unick (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Unick is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Unick can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Unick, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Unick 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 Unick can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Unick
2. Improving business portfolio management of Unick
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Unick
Strengths of Unick | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Unick are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Unick is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Unick is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Unick is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Unick in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Unick in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Unick has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Unick to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Unick is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Unick 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Unick 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Unick has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Unick to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Unick to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Unick 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 Unick is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Unick emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Unick has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Unick 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Unick has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Unick have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Unick digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Unick 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.
Weaknesses of Unick | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Unick are -
Employees’ less understanding of Unick strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Unick don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Unick needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Unick 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Unick has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Fabricated 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Unick is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Unick to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Unick is just above the Misc. Fabricated 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Unick 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Unick 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Unick is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Unick needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Unick can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Unick is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Unick supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Unick is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Unick vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Unick Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Unick are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Unick can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Unick can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Unick 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Unick 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 Unick 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 Unick to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Unick 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Unick can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Unick 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. Unick 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 Unick 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Unick in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Unick can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Unick operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Unick is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Unick can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Unick in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Unick can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Unick External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Unick are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Unick 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 Unick prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Unick 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.
Increasing wage structure of Unick
– 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 Unick.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Unick may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Unick can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Unick in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Unick 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
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
– Unick 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. Unick can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Unick is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Unick.
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. Unick 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Unick Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Unick 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 Unick 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 Unick 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 Unick 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 Unick needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
