Corning (GLW) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal & Household Prods.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Corning (United States)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Corning is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Corning can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Corning, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Corning 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 Corning can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Corning
2. Improving business portfolio management of Corning
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in United States
4. Making a Personal & Household Prods. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Corning
Strengths of Corning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Corning are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Corning 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Corning is one of the most innovative firm in Personal & Household Prods. sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Corning 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.
Training and development
– Corning 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.
Analytics focus
– Corning 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry. The technology infrastructure of United States 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.
Learning organization
- Corning 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 Corning is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Corning emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– Corning has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Corning to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Corning to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Corning is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in United States. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in United States. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Organizational Resilience of Corning
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Corning does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Diverse revenue streams
– Corning is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This has provided Corning 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.
Digital Transformation in Personal & Household Prods. industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Corning digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Corning 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Corning in Personal & Household Prods. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Corning | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Corning are -
Need for greater diversity
– Corning 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 dependence on Corning ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Corning still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal & Household Prods. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Corning has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in United States, Corning 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Corning has high operating costs in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Corning lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Corning is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Corning to provide better information regarding Personal & Household Prods. products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Corning 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Corning has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal & Household Prods. 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 Corning, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Corning strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Corning 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Corning needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal & Household Prods. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Corning can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Corning is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of United States, Corning needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Corning Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Corning are -
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal & Household Prods. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Corning can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Corning has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can help Corning to build a more holistic ecosystem for Corning products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Corning to increase its market reach. Corning 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Corning 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Corning 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 Corning to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal & Household Prods. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Corning 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. Corning 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 Corning 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Corning in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Corning can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Corning 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Corning can develop new processes and procedures in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Corning can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Corning 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.
Threats Corning External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Corning are -
Regulatory challenges
– Corning 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry regulations.
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 Corning business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Corning.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Corning may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal & Household Prods. sector.
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. Corning 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.
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 Corning in the Personal & Household Prods. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal & Household Prods. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Corning can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Corning has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Corning needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal & Household Prods. industry are lowering. It can presents Corning with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Corning 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 Corning prominent markets.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Corning in Personal & Household Prods. industry. The Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Environmental challenges
– Corning 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. Corning can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Corning Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Corning 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 Corning 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 Corning 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 Corning 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 Corning needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.