SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Duckshin Housing (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Duckshin Housing is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Duckshin Housing can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Duckshin Housing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Duckshin Housing
2. Improving business portfolio management of Duckshin Housing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Duckshin Housing
Strengths of Duckshin Housing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Duckshin Housing are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Duckshin Housing comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Digital Transformation in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Duckshin Housing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Duckshin Housing 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Duckshin Housing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Duckshin Housing emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Duckshin Housing 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Duckshin Housing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Duckshin Housing has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Duckshin Housing to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Duckshin Housing 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 lead change in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– Duckshin Housing is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Duckshin Housing in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Training and development
– Duckshin Housing has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Duckshin Housing 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Duckshin Housing has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Duckshin Housing have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Duckshin Housing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Duckshin Housing are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Duckshin Housing 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, Duckshin Housing 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Duckshin Housing strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Duckshin Housing 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Duckshin Housing has high operating costs in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Duckshin Housing lucrative customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Duckshin Housing has some of the most successful models in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Duckshin Housing should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Duckshin Housing is just above the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Duckshin Housing 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Duckshin Housing is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in last five years.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Duckshin Housing 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, Duckshin Housing is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Duckshin Housing to provide better information regarding Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Duckshin Housing products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Duckshin Housing needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Duckshin Housing Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Duckshin Housing are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Duckshin Housing has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can help Duckshin Housing to build a more holistic ecosystem for Duckshin Housing products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Duckshin Housing can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Duckshin Housing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Duckshin Housing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Duckshin Housing 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Duckshin Housing to increase its market reach. Duckshin Housing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Duckshin Housing 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Duckshin Housing can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Duckshin Housing has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Duckshin Housing to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Duckshin Housing to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Duckshin Housing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Duckshin Housing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Duckshin Housing in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Duckshin Housing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry are lowering. It can presents Duckshin Housing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Duckshin Housing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Duckshin Housing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Duckshin Housing can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Duckshin Housing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Duckshin Housing 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
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 Duckshin Housing.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Duckshin Housing 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Duckshin Housing is facing in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Duckshin Housing Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing 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 Duckshin Housing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.