SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Minebea Mitsumi (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Minebea Mitsumi is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
increasing energy prices, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Minebea Mitsumi can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Minebea Mitsumi, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Minebea Mitsumi
2. Improving business portfolio management of Minebea Mitsumi
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Minebea Mitsumi
Strengths of Minebea Mitsumi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Minebea Mitsumi are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Minebea Mitsumi does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Minebea Mitsumi has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Minebea Mitsumi digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Minebea Mitsumi 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Minebea Mitsumi is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Minebea Mitsumi in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Minebea Mitsumi has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Minebea Mitsumi have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Minebea Mitsumi has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Minebea Mitsumi to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Minebea Mitsumi is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Minebea Mitsumi 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Minebea Mitsumi has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Minebea Mitsumi staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Minebea Mitsumi 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.
Learning organization
- Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Minebea Mitsumi emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Minebea Mitsumi | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Minebea Mitsumi are -
Employees’ less understanding of Minebea Mitsumi strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Minebea Mitsumi 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Minebea Mitsumi has high operating costs in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Minebea Mitsumi lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Minebea Mitsumi products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Minebea Mitsumi needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Minebea Mitsumi is just above the Misc. Fabricated Products industry average. It 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Minebea Mitsumi, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Minebea Mitsumi has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Minebea Mitsumi supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Minebea Mitsumi is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Minebea Mitsumi vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Minebea Mitsumi needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Minebea Mitsumi can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Minebea Mitsumi is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Minebea Mitsumi is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Minebea Mitsumi needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Minebea Mitsumi to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Minebea Mitsumi is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Minebea Mitsumi needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Minebea Mitsumi has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Minebea Mitsumi should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Minebea Mitsumi Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Minebea Mitsumi are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Minebea Mitsumi has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Minebea Mitsumi to build a more holistic ecosystem for Minebea Mitsumi products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Minebea Mitsumi has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Minebea Mitsumi to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Minebea Mitsumi to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Minebea Mitsumi can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Minebea Mitsumi can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Minebea Mitsumi in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Minebea Mitsumi can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Minebea Mitsumi 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Minebea Mitsumi 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Minebea Mitsumi can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
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. Minebea Mitsumi can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Minebea Mitsumi can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Threats Minebea Mitsumi External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Minebea Mitsumi are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Minebea Mitsumi has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Minebea Mitsumi needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Minebea Mitsumi in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
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 Minebea Mitsumi business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Minebea Mitsumi may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
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. Minebea Mitsumi 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.
Environmental challenges
– Minebea Mitsumi 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. Minebea Mitsumi can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Minebea Mitsumi 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Minebea Mitsumi 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Minebea Mitsumi is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Minebea Mitsumi.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Minebea Mitsumi 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.
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. Minebea Mitsumi needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Minebea Mitsumi Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi 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 Minebea Mitsumi needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.