CK Infrastructure (1038) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Electric Utilities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for CK Infrastructure (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , CK Infrastructure is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of CK Infrastructure
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that CK Infrastructure can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the CK Infrastructure, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of CK Infrastructure
2. Improving business portfolio management of CK Infrastructure
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Electric Utilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of CK Infrastructure
Strengths of CK Infrastructure | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of CK Infrastructure are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that CK Infrastructure 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.
Digital Transformation in Electric Utilities industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For CK Infrastructure digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. CK Infrastructure 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.
Organizational Resilience of CK Infrastructure
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing CK Infrastructure does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– CK Infrastructure has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electric Utilities industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of CK Infrastructure have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of CK Infrastructure in Electric Utilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of CK Infrastructure comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Electric Utilities 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– CK Infrastructure is one of the leading players in the Electric Utilities industry in Hong Kong. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Hong Kong. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at CK Infrastructure emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– CK Infrastructure is one of the most innovative firm in Electric Utilities sector.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electric Utilities industry
– CK Infrastructure has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled CK Infrastructure to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electric Utilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped CK Infrastructure to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Electric Utilities industry
– CK Infrastructure is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– CK Infrastructure 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 Electric Utilities industry. The technology infrastructure of Hong Kong 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 CK Infrastructure | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of CK Infrastructure are -
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 CK Infrastructure supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, CK Infrastructure is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left CK Infrastructure vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, CK Infrastructure 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 Electric Utilities industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of CK Infrastructure products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, CK Infrastructure needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of CK Infrastructure strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of CK Infrastructure 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, CK Infrastructure is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help CK Infrastructure to provide better information regarding Electric Utilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on CK Infrastructure ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of CK Infrastructure still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Electric Utilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though CK Infrastructure has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, CK Infrastructure has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Electric Utilities industry over the last five years. CK Infrastructure 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that CK Infrastructure needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electric Utilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at CK Infrastructure can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as CK Infrastructure is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Electric Utilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, CK Infrastructure 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 Electric Utilities industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though CK Infrastructure has some of the most successful models in the Electric Utilities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. CK Infrastructure should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electric Utilities industry, CK Infrastructure 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.
CK Infrastructure Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of CK Infrastructure are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, CK Infrastructure 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, CK Infrastructure can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that CK Infrastructure operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electric Utilities sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– CK Infrastructure has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electric Utilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled CK Infrastructure to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help CK Infrastructure to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– CK Infrastructure can develop new processes and procedures in Electric Utilities 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help CK Infrastructure to increase its market reach. CK Infrastructure 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of CK Infrastructure has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electric Utilities industry. This can help CK Infrastructure to build a more holistic ecosystem for CK Infrastructure products in the Electric Utilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electric Utilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. CK Infrastructure 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. CK Infrastructure 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.
Buying journey improvements
– CK Infrastructure can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electric Utilities 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, CK Infrastructure is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. CK Infrastructure can utilize new technology in the field of Electric Utilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for CK Infrastructure 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.
Loyalty marketing
– CK Infrastructure 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electric Utilities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for CK Infrastructure in the Electric Utilities industry. Now CK Infrastructure can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for CK Infrastructure in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electric Utilities industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats CK Infrastructure External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of CK Infrastructure are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electric Utilities industry are lowering. It can presents CK Infrastructure with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electric Utilities sector.
Increasing wage structure of CK Infrastructure
– 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 CK Infrastructure.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– CK Infrastructure 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for CK Infrastructure in Electric Utilities industry. The Electric Utilities 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, CK Infrastructure may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Electric Utilities 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. CK Infrastructure 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 Electric Utilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. CK Infrastructure can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– CK Infrastructure 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. CK Infrastructure can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Electric Utilities industry.
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 CK Infrastructure business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 CK Infrastructure.
Regulatory challenges
– CK Infrastructure 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 Electric Utilities industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of CK Infrastructure Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure 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 CK Infrastructure needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.