Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Global Business
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform
The Japanese banking industry entered a major crisis in the 1990s, as massive nonperforming loans threatened the survival of even the largest banks. This was a far cry from Japan's stellar growth from 1950 and the heady days of spiraling property and stock market prices in the 1980s. Traces the development of the Japanese economy from the end of the Second World War, the role of international trade flows and finance and foreign direct investment as well as the part played by the Japanese banking sector in those developments. By the year 2000, the government had spent trillions of yen in rescue packages, including the nationalization of two of the largest banks, and was attempting to institute banking sector reforms to resolve the crisis.
Authors :: Michael J. Enright, James Newton, Elyssa Tran
Swot Analysis of "Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform" written by Michael J. Enright, James Newton, Elyssa Tran includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Japanese Banking facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Economic development, Government, International business, Reorganization and Global Business.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform casestudy better are - – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese Banking, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Japanese Banking
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Global Business field.
4. Making a Global Business topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Japanese Banking
Strengths Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Japanese Banking in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform Harvard Business Review case study are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Japanese Banking is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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.
Digital Transformation in Global Business segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Japanese Banking digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Japanese Banking 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Japanese Banking in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Japanese Banking has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Japanese Banking to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Japanese Banking is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform case study 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Japanese Banking in the sector have low bargaining power. Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Japanese Banking to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Japanese Banking 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.
Analytics focus
– Japanese Banking 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 Michael J. Enright, James Newton, Elyssa Tran 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.
Learning organization
- Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform HBR case study mentions - Japanese Banking takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Japanese Banking 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Japanese Banking has some of the most successful products in the industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. firm in the HBR case study - Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Japanese Banking 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 industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform, in the dynamic environment Japanese Banking has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Japanese Banking has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Japanese Banking is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform, is just above the industry average. Japanese Banking 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japanese Banking, firm in the HBR case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Japanese Banking 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. Japanese Banking 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Global Business 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.
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 Japanese Banking supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Japanese Banking vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Opportunities Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform | 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Japanese Banking in the consumer business. Now Japanese Banking can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Japanese Banking in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Global Business segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Japanese Banking 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Global Business industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Japanese Banking can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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 Japanese Banking 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Japanese Banking 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Japanese Banking 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Japanese Banking is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Japanese Banking 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 Global Business segment.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Japanese Banking has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Japanese Banking 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
– Japanese Banking can develop new processes and procedures in Global Business 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 Japanese Banking can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Japanese Banking in the Global Business industry. The Global Business 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.
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. Japanese Banking 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Japanese Banking can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
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 Japanese Banking in the Global Business sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Japanese Banking 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. Japanese Banking can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Global Business industry.
Increasing wage structure of Japanese Banking
– 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 Japanese Banking.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform, Japanese Banking may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Global Business .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Global Business field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Japanese Banking can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Japanese Banking with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Japanese Banking 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform .
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.
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. Japanese Banking needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Global Business industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking: Crisis and Reform 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 Japanese Banking needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.