SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sam-A Aluminiu (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sam-A Aluminiu is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sam-A Aluminiu can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sam-A Aluminiu, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sam-A Aluminiu
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sam-A Aluminiu
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 Sam-A Aluminiu
Strengths of Sam-A Aluminiu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sam-A Aluminiu are -
High brand equity
– Sam-A Aluminiu has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sam-A Aluminiu to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Analytics focus
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sam-A Aluminiu is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Sam-A Aluminiu has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sam-A Aluminiu to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sam-A Aluminiu to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sam-A Aluminiu in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sam-A Aluminiu
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sam-A Aluminiu does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Sam-A Aluminiu is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sam-A Aluminiu has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sam-A Aluminiu staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sam-A Aluminiu has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sam-A Aluminiu 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
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sam-A Aluminiu is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Weaknesses of Sam-A Aluminiu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sam-A Aluminiu are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sam-A Aluminiu is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Sam-A Aluminiu strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sam-A Aluminiu 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
High dependence on Sam-A Aluminiu ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sam-A Aluminiu still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sam-A Aluminiu has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sam-A Aluminiu is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sam-A Aluminiu has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sam-A Aluminiu should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sam-A Aluminiu, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Sam-A Aluminiu Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sam-A Aluminiu are -
Loyalty marketing
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sam-A Aluminiu can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
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 Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sam-A Aluminiu is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Sam-A Aluminiu can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Sam-A Aluminiu 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. Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
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. Sam-A Aluminiu can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sam-A Aluminiu has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sam-A Aluminiu to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sam-A Aluminiu to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Sam-A Aluminiu External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sam-A Aluminiu are -
Environmental challenges
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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. Sam-A Aluminiu can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Sam-A Aluminiu with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the 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. Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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 acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sam-A Aluminiu has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sam-A Aluminiu needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sam-A Aluminiu in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sam-A Aluminiu is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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. Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu 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 Sam-A Aluminiu needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.