Tokyo Plast International Ltd (TPLI) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tokyo Plast International Ltd (India)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tokyo Plast International Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tokyo Plast International Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tokyo Plast International Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tokyo Plast International Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tokyo Plast International Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tokyo Plast International Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in India
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tokyo Plast International Ltd
Strengths of Tokyo Plast International Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tokyo Plast International Ltd are -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tokyo Plast International Ltd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Tokyo Plast International Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tokyo Plast International Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
High brand equity
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tokyo Plast International Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Tokyo Plast International Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tokyo Plast International Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tokyo Plast International Ltd staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tokyo Plast International Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tokyo Plast International Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tokyo Plast International Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Weaknesses of Tokyo Plast International Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Tokyo Plast International Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tokyo Plast International Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Tokyo Plast International Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Business Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tokyo Plast International Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tokyo Plast International Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tokyo Plast International Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tokyo Plast International Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Tokyo Plast International Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Business Services industry. 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Business Services industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of India, Tokyo Plast International Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tokyo Plast International Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Business Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Tokyo Plast International Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tokyo Plast International Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Business Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tokyo Plast International Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Tokyo Plast International Ltd is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Tokyo Plast International Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Tokyo Plast International Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tokyo Plast International Ltd are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tokyo Plast International Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Tokyo Plast International Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Business Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tokyo Plast International Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tokyo Plast International Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tokyo Plast International Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tokyo Plast International Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Business Services industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tokyo Plast International Ltd to increase its market reach. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business Services 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Business Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Tokyo Plast International Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Tokyo Plast International Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tokyo Plast International Ltd are -
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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Tokyo Plast International Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Business Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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.
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.
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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd prominent markets.
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. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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, Tokyo Plast International Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Tokyo Plast International Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tokyo Plast International Ltd in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tokyo Plast International Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd 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 Tokyo Plast International Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.