Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hoya Cor 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%, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hoya Cor can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hoya Cor, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hoya Cor
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hoya Cor
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hoya Cor
Strengths of Hoya Cor | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hoya Cor are -
Training and development
– Hoya Cor has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Digital Transformation in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hoya Cor digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hoya Cor 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.
Organizational Resilience of Hoya Cor
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hoya Cor does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Hoya Cor is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hoya Cor has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hoya Cor have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hoya Cor in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hoya Cor emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hoya Cor 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hoya Cor is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Japan. It is in a position to attract the best talent available in Japan. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Innovation driven organization
– Hoya Cor is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hoya Cor in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Hoya Cor has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hoya Cor to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Hoya Cor 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan 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.
Weaknesses of Hoya Cor | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hoya Cor are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hoya Cor is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hoya Cor has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hoya Cor should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Employees’ less understanding of Hoya Cor strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Hoya Cor 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
– From the outside it seems that Hoya Cor needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hoya Cor can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hoya Cor is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hoya Cor 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Hoya Cor is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Hoya Cor to provide better information regarding Electronic Instr. & Controls products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Hoya Cor has high operating costs in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Hoya Cor lucrative customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, Hoya Cor 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, Hoya Cor has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry over the last five years. Hoya Cor 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.
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 Hoya Cor supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hoya Cor is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hoya Cor vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Hoya Cor 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Hoya Cor Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hoya Cor are -
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 Hoya Cor 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Hoya Cor can develop new processes and procedures in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hoya Cor in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Now Hoya Cor can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hoya Cor 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hoya Cor 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Hoya Cor can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hoya Cor to increase its market reach. Hoya Cor 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hoya Cor has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hoya Cor to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hoya Cor 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Hoya Cor can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hoya Cor operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hoya Cor 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. Hoya Cor 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.
Threats Hoya Cor External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hoya Cor are -
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 Hoya Cor.
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 Hoya Cor business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hoya Cor 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hoya Cor can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Hoya Cor 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hoya Cor has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hoya Cor needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor prominent markets.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Hoya Cor
– 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 Hoya Cor.
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 Hoya Cor in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline 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. Hoya Cor needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hoya Cor 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hoya Cor Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor 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 Hoya Cor needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.