SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pobis TNC (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pobis TNC is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, 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, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, 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 Pobis TNC can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pobis TNC, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Pobis TNC
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pobis TNC
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Computer Hardware sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Pobis TNC
Strengths of Pobis TNC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pobis TNC are -
Ability to lead change in Computer Hardware
– Pobis TNC is one of the leading players in the Computer Hardware industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Hardware industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Pobis TNC in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Pobis TNC in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Pobis TNC has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Pobis TNC to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
High brand equity
– Pobis TNC has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Pobis TNC to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Computer Hardware industry
– Pobis TNC has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pobis TNC to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Computer Hardware industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pobis TNC to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pobis TNC is one of the leading players in the Computer Hardware 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.
Learning organization
- Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Pobis TNC emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Pobis TNC has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pobis TNC has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Pobis TNC staying ahead in the Computer Hardware industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Pobis TNC 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Pobis TNC is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Hardware industry. This has provided Pobis TNC 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Pobis TNC has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Pobis TNC 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.
Analytics focus
– Pobis TNC 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 Computer Hardware 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.
Weaknesses of Pobis TNC | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pobis TNC are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Pobis TNC products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Pobis TNC needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Hardware industry, Pobis TNC 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.
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 Pobis TNC supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Pobis TNC is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Pobis TNC vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Pobis TNC is one of the leading players in the Computer Hardware industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Computer Hardware industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Pobis TNC needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Hardware industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Pobis TNC can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Pobis TNC is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Hardware industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Pobis TNC 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 Computer Hardware industry.
Skills based hiring in Computer Hardware industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Pobis TNC 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Pobis TNC is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Computer Hardware industry, but Pobis TNC needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Pobis TNC to focus more on services in the Computer Hardware industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Pobis TNC, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Computer Hardware 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pobis TNC 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Pobis TNC is just above the Computer Hardware 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.
Pobis TNC Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Pobis TNC are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pobis TNC 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 Computer Hardware industry.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pobis TNC 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Pobis TNC can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Pobis TNC operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Hardware sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Pobis TNC can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Computer Hardware 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pobis TNC to increase its market reach. Pobis TNC 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Pobis TNC 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Pobis TNC is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Pobis TNC can utilize new technology in the field of Computer Hardware industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Pobis TNC has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Computer Hardware industry. This can help Pobis TNC to build a more holistic ecosystem for Pobis TNC products in the Computer Hardware industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Pobis TNC in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Computer Hardware industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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 Pobis TNC 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.
Threats Pobis TNC External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Pobis TNC are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pobis TNC has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Hardware industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pobis TNC needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Hardware 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pobis TNC is facing in Computer Hardware sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Hardware industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Pobis TNC can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Pobis TNC needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer Hardware industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Pobis TNC business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Pobis TNC 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 Computer Hardware industry.
Increasing wage structure of Pobis TNC
– 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 Pobis TNC.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Hardware industry are lowering. It can presents Pobis TNC with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Hardware sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Pobis TNC in Computer Hardware industry. The Computer Hardware 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Pobis TNC may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Computer Hardware sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Pobis TNC 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 Computer Hardware industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pobis TNC Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC 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 Pobis TNC needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
