SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Koradior Holdings (Hong Kong)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Koradior Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Koradior Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Koradior Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Koradior Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Koradior Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Koradior Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Hong Kong
4. Making a Retail (Apparel) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Koradior Holdings
Strengths of Koradior Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Koradior Holdings are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Koradior Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Koradior Holdings staying ahead in the Retail (Apparel) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Training and development
– Koradior Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Apparel) industry
– Koradior Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Koradior Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Apparel) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Koradior Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Koradior Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Koradior Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Koradior Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Koradior Holdings in Retail (Apparel) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Koradior Holdings in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Koradior Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Koradior Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Apparel) industry
– Koradior Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Koradior Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Apparel) sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Koradior Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Apparel) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Koradior Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Koradior Holdings comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Koradior Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Apparel) industry. This has provided Koradior Holdings 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.
Weaknesses of Koradior Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Koradior Holdings are -
Skills based hiring in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Koradior Holdings 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Koradior Holdings has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Apparel) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Koradior Holdings should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Koradior Holdings is one of the leading players in the Retail (Apparel) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Apparel) industry, Koradior Holdings 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Koradior Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Apparel) industry over the last five years. Koradior Holdings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Koradior Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Apparel) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Hong Kong, Koradior Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Koradior Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Koradior Holdings 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, Koradior Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Koradior Holdings to provide better information regarding Retail (Apparel) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Koradior Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Apparel) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Koradior Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Koradior Holdings is just above the Retail (Apparel) 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.
Koradior Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Koradior Holdings are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Koradior Holdings 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Koradior Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Apparel) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Koradior Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Koradior Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Koradior Holdings in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Apparel) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Koradior Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Koradior Holdings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Koradior Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Apparel) industry. This can help Koradior Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Koradior Holdings products in the Retail (Apparel) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Koradior Holdings 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Koradior Holdings to increase its market reach. Koradior Holdings 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Koradior Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Apparel) 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.
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 Koradior Holdings 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Apparel) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Koradior Holdings 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. Koradior Holdings 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Apparel) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Koradior Holdings in the Retail (Apparel) industry. Now Koradior Holdings can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Koradior Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Koradior Holdings are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Koradior Holdings 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 Retail (Apparel) industry and other sectors.
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 Koradior Holdings.
Increasing wage structure of Koradior Holdings
– 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 Koradior Holdings.
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. Koradior Holdings 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Koradior Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Apparel) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Koradior Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Apparel) 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.
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. Koradior Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Apparel) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Koradior Holdings in Retail (Apparel) industry. The Retail (Apparel) 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Apparel) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Koradior Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Koradior Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Apparel) sector.
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 Koradior Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Apparel) industry are lowering. It can presents Koradior Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Apparel) sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Koradior Holdings is facing in Retail (Apparel) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Koradior Holdings in the Retail (Apparel) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Koradior Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings 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 Koradior Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.