Strategies for improving the competitiveness of the Korean shipbuilding industry : Case study of Hyundai Heavy Industries

Although external factors affect companies, companies need solutions to survive and sustain growth. However, the financial crisis of 2008 affected the Korean shipbuilding industry and companies recorded poor financial results. To solve this problem and increase the competitiveness of the Korean shipbuilding industry, it is necessary to find stabilizing suggestions and promising markets to diversify into. Therefore, this research is aimed at proposing suggestions for problem solving and new market development. To deeply look into this situation, a case study of a particular company will be undertaken. The target company is Hyundai Heavy Industries and its competitors are Samsung Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. The process involved four stages. The first stage where an external analysis were done for global, national and international regulation trends and the overall trends were extracted. The sectors where the trends were analyzed are green business, smart business and entertainment business. The second stage is an internal analysis which was achieved by examining the general background using a capability analyzing tool. In this stages seventeen resources with eight problems were found. Based on previous stages, in the third step, five problem-solving suggestions and nine take-off suggestions were proposed. The fourth step is suggestions adaptation for prioritization. To do this, all suggestions were listed and similar suggestions combined. The nine combined suggestions were assessed according to internal resources, external competition and needed time. Through this, high, medium and low level recommendations were given. High level recommendations are energy efficient vessel, advanced connected smart ship, B2C business, production costs and emotional approach. This will be followed by the ripple effect, where if the ideas are accepted, the company can solve encountered problems and create a new market. In addition, other Korean shipbuilding companies can also adopt the ideas or methodologies to increase competitiveness