Pola Orbis Holdings (4927) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal & Household Prods.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Pola Orbis Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Pola Orbis Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Pola Orbis Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Pola Orbis Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Pola Orbis Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Pola Orbis Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Pola Orbis Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Personal & Household Prods. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Pola Orbis Holdings
Strengths of Pola Orbis Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Pola Orbis Holdings are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Pola Orbis Holdings is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Pola Orbis Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This has provided Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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
– Pola Orbis Holdings has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal & Household Prods. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Pola Orbis Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Pola Orbis Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal & Household Prods. industry
– Pola Orbis Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Pola Orbis Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Pola Orbis Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Pola Orbis Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Personal & Household Prods. sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Pola Orbis Holdings in Personal & Household Prods. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Pola Orbis Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Pola Orbis Holdings staying ahead in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Pola Orbis Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Weaknesses of Pola Orbis Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Pola Orbis Holdings are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Pola Orbis Holdings has high operating costs in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Pola Orbis Holdings lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Pola Orbis Holdings is just above the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Pola Orbis Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Pola Orbis Holdings has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Pola Orbis Holdings is one of the leading players in the Personal & Household Prods. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Pola Orbis Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Pola Orbis Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Pola Orbis Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Pola Orbis Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal & Household Prods. industry over the last five years. Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Pola Orbis Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Pola Orbis Holdings are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Pola Orbis Holdings 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
– Pola Orbis Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Pola Orbis Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
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. Pola Orbis Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Pola Orbis Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Pola Orbis Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Personal & Household Prods. industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Pola Orbis Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal & Household Prods. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Pola Orbis Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Pola Orbis Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Pola Orbis Holdings to increase its market reach. Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Pola Orbis Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Personal & Household Prods. industry. This can help Pola Orbis Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Pola Orbis Holdings products in the Personal & Household Prods. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Pola Orbis Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Pola Orbis Holdings are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal & Household Prods. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Pola Orbis Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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.
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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Pola Orbis Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal & Household Prods. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Pola Orbis Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal & Household Prods. 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Personal & Household Prods. industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Pola Orbis Holdings
– 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 Pola Orbis Holdings.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Pola Orbis Holdings is facing in Personal & Household Prods. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Pola Orbis Holdings 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. Pola Orbis Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal & Household Prods. industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Pola Orbis Holdings in the Personal & Household Prods. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Pola Orbis Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings 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 Pola Orbis Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.