Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Strategy & Execution
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing
Highlights the development of Japan Airlines (JAL) and the company's efforts to address its financial problems through restructuring. Also discusses how the changing business landscape through e-commerce has impacted the airline industry, and discusses the advent of e-ticketing as a means of cutting costs, a source of competitive advantage, and as a facilitator for further innovation towards new channels of distribution. As these rapid changes were taking place throughout the industry, JAL appeared to react passively to the adoption of the e-commerce and customer service innovations that other players were incorporating.
Authors :: Dennis Kira, Ali F. Farhoomand, Amir Hoosain, Shamza Khan
Swot Analysis of "Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing" written by Dennis Kira, Ali F. Farhoomand, Amir Hoosain, Shamza Khan includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Jal Ticketing facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jal Ticketing, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jal Ticketing 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 Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jal Ticketing
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jal Ticketing
Strengths Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jal Ticketing in Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jal Ticketing 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Jal Ticketing to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Jal Ticketing to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jal Ticketing in the sector have low bargaining power. Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jal Ticketing to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management
– Jal Ticketing is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jal Ticketing has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jal Ticketing has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jal Ticketing digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jal Ticketing 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jal Ticketing has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jal Ticketing 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jal Ticketing 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.
Organizational Resilience of Jal Ticketing
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Jal Ticketing does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the 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.
Analytics focus
– Jal Ticketing 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 industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Dennis Kira, Ali F. Farhoomand, Amir Hoosain, Shamza Khan can also help 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 Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing are -
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jal Ticketing has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Jal Ticketing 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Jal Ticketing 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing, in the dynamic environment Jal Ticketing has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Jal Ticketing has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the segment, Jal Ticketing 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jal Ticketing has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing, it seems that the employees of Jal Ticketing 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
– It come across in the case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jal Ticketing is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jal Ticketing 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Jal Ticketing, firm in the HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jal Ticketing 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.
Opportunities Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing are -
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Jal Ticketing 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, as suggested in case study, Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jal Ticketing can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jal Ticketing operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jal Ticketing 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. Jal Ticketing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jal Ticketing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jal Ticketing can develop new processes and procedures in Strategy & Execution 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 Jal Ticketing can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Jal Ticketing 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Jal Ticketing can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing suggest that firm 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jal Ticketing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jal Ticketing 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 Strategy & Execution segment.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Jal Ticketing can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Strategy & Execution industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jal Ticketing can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jal Ticketing 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 Jal Ticketing to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing are -
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jal Ticketing 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 the industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jal Ticketing has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jal Ticketing needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jal Ticketing is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Jal Ticketing in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution 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 wage structure of Jal Ticketing
– 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 Jal Ticketing.
Environmental challenges
– Jal Ticketing 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. Jal Ticketing can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Jal Ticketing with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Jal Ticketing 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 Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
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. Jal Ticketing needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jal Ticketing 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 prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing .
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 Jal Ticketing in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Jal Ticketing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing 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 the case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing 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 the Harvard case study Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing 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 Japan Airlines: The Impact of e-Ticketing is 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 Jal Ticketing needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.