Kyobo BNK Special (242040) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Financial Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kyobo BNK Special (South Korea)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kyobo BNK Special is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kyobo BNK Special
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kyobo BNK Special can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kyobo BNK Special, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kyobo BNK Special
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kyobo BNK Special
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Misc. Financial Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kyobo BNK Special
Strengths of Kyobo BNK Special | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kyobo BNK Special are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kyobo BNK Special has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kyobo BNK Special staying ahead in the Misc. Financial Services 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
– Kyobo BNK Special has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kyobo BNK Special in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Kyobo BNK Special has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kyobo BNK Special to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Financial Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kyobo BNK Special digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Kyobo BNK Special is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Financial Services industry. This has provided Kyobo BNK Special 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Kyobo BNK Special is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Financial Services sector.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Financial Services
– Kyobo BNK Special is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Financial Services industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kyobo BNK Special in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Financial Services industry
– Kyobo BNK Special is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kyobo BNK Special is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services 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
– Kyobo BNK Special has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kyobo BNK Special to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses of Kyobo BNK Special | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kyobo BNK Special are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of South Korea, Kyobo BNK Special needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kyobo BNK Special is one of the leading players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Financial Services industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Kyobo BNK Special is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Financial Services industry, but Kyobo BNK Special needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Kyobo BNK Special to focus more on services in the Misc. Financial Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kyobo BNK Special 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. Financial Services industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kyobo BNK Special is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kyobo BNK Special to provide better information regarding Misc. Financial Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Kyobo BNK Special 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.
High dependence on Kyobo BNK Special ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kyobo BNK Special still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Financial Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kyobo BNK Special has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Financial Services industry, Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kyobo BNK Special 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, Kyobo BNK Special has high operating costs in the Misc. Financial Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kyobo BNK Special lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Financial Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Kyobo BNK Special 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. Financial Services industry.
Kyobo BNK Special Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kyobo BNK Special are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kyobo BNK Special has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Financial Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kyobo BNK Special to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kyobo BNK Special to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Financial Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kyobo BNK Special can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Financial Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kyobo BNK Special in the Misc. Financial Services industry. Now Kyobo BNK Special can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Kyobo BNK Special can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special 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 Misc. Financial Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kyobo BNK Special 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. Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kyobo BNK Special 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. Financial Services industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kyobo BNK Special 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, Kyobo BNK Special is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kyobo BNK Special can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Financial Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kyobo BNK Special can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Financial Services 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kyobo BNK Special 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.
Threats Kyobo BNK Special External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kyobo BNK Special are -
Increasing wage structure of Kyobo BNK Special
– 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 Kyobo BNK Special.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kyobo BNK Special 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.
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. Kyobo BNK Special 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.
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.
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 Kyobo BNK Special in the Misc. Financial Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Misc. Financial Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kyobo BNK Special can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kyobo BNK Special 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. Financial Services industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kyobo BNK Special 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. Financial Services sector.
Environmental challenges
– Kyobo BNK Special 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. Kyobo BNK Special can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Financial Services industry.
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 Kyobo BNK Special.
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 Kyobo BNK Special business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kyobo BNK Special has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Financial Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kyobo BNK Special needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Financial Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kyobo BNK Special Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special 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 Kyobo BNK Special needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.