Cronex (215570) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cronex (South Korea)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cronex is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cronex

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cronex can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cronex, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cronex 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Cronex can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cronex
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cronex
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in South Korea
4. Making a Fish/Livestock sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cronex

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Strengths of Cronex | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Cronex are -

Ability to recruit top talent

– Cronex is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Cronex in Fish/Livestock industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Cronex comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fish/Livestock 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Cronex 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Cronex has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fish/Livestock industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cronex have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Cronex has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Cronex staying ahead in the Fish/Livestock industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Cronex in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Cronex has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cronex to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Ability to lead change in Fish/Livestock

– Cronex is one of the leading players in the Fish/Livestock industry in South Korea. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Fish/Livestock industry in South Korea but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Cronex in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Organizational Resilience of Cronex

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cronex does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Cronex has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Cronex 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.

Training and development

– Cronex has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.

Learning organization

- Cronex 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 Cronex is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cronex emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

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Weaknesses of Cronex | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Cronex are -

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Cronex, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fish/Livestock 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, Cronex 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Cronex needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Fish/Livestock industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Cronex can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Cronex is planning to shift buying processes online.

High dependence on Cronex ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Cronex still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fish/Livestock industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cronex has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

Employees’ less understanding of Cronex strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cronex 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.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Fish/Livestock industry, Cronex 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.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Cronex has some of the most successful models in the Fish/Livestock industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Cronex should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Cronex is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fish/Livestock industry, but Cronex needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cronex to focus more on services in the Fish/Livestock industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Need for greater diversity

– Cronex has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Fish/Livestock industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in South Korea, Cronex 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cronex has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fish/Livestock industry over the last five years. Cronex even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.

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Cronex Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Cronex are -

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cronex 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 Cronex to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

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 Cronex 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 Cronex in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fish/Livestock 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, Cronex can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Cronex operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fish/Livestock sector.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cronex to increase its market reach. Cronex 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Cronex 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Buying journey improvements

– Cronex can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fish/Livestock 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fish/Livestock industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cronex can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Cronex can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fish/Livestock industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Cronex in the Fish/Livestock industry. Now Cronex can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Cronex 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 Cronex to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Loyalty marketing

– Cronex 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 Cronex 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.

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Threats Cronex External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Cronex are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cronex in Fish/Livestock industry. The Fish/Livestock 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.

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. Cronex 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Fish/Livestock industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Cronex can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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.

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 Cronex.

Environmental challenges

– Cronex 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. Cronex can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fish/Livestock industry.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Fish/Livestock industry are lowering. It can presents Cronex with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Fish/Livestock sector.

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 Cronex in the Fish/Livestock sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Cronex 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 Fish/Livestock industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Cronex 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 Fish/Livestock industry and other sectors.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Cronex 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 Cronex

– 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 Cronex.

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 Cronex business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Cronex Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cronex 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 Cronex 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 Cronex 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 Cronex 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 Cronex needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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