The Chiba Bank (8331) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for The Chiba Bank (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , The Chiba Bank is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that The Chiba Bank can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the The Chiba Bank, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which The Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of The Chiba Bank
2. Improving business portfolio management of The Chiba Bank
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of The Chiba Bank
Strengths of The Chiba Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of The Chiba Bank are -
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– The Chiba Bank is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Training and development
– The Chiba Bank has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
Learning organization
- The Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at The Chiba Bank emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Regional Banks
– The Chiba Bank is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Regional Banks industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled The Chiba Bank in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the The Chiba Bank 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– The Chiba Bank is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided The Chiba Bank 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of The Chiba Bank in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Regional Banks industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For The Chiba Bank digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. The Chiba Bank 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of The Chiba Bank comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Regional Banks 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– The Chiba Bank has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of The Chiba Bank have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– The Chiba Bank has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – The Chiba Bank staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– The Chiba Bank is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Weaknesses of The Chiba Bank | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Chiba Bank are -
High dependence on The Chiba Bank ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of The Chiba Bank still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Regional Banks industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though The Chiba Bank has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of The Chiba Bank products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, The Chiba Bank needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at The Chiba Bank, in the dynamic environment of Regional Banks industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. The Chiba Bank has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, The Chiba Bank 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 Regional Banks industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, The Chiba Bank has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. The Chiba Bank 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.
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at The Chiba Bank 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of The Chiba Bank, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
Employees’ less understanding of The Chiba Bank strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of The Chiba Bank 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
The Chiba Bank has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Regional Banks industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, The Chiba Bank is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help The Chiba Bank to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, The Chiba Bank has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract The Chiba Bank lucrative customers.
The Chiba Bank Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of The Chiba Bank are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, The Chiba Bank 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, The Chiba Bank is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Chiba Bank can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– The Chiba Bank has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled The Chiba Bank to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help The Chiba Bank to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for The Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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 The Chiba Bank 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of The Chiba Bank has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help The Chiba Bank to build a more holistic ecosystem for The Chiba Bank products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– The Chiba Bank can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. The Chiba Bank can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for The Chiba Bank in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Regional Banks industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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. The Chiba Bank can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help The Chiba Bank to increase its market reach. The Chiba Bank 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at The Chiba Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, The Chiba Bank can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that The Chiba Bank operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.
Threats The Chiba Bank External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of The Chiba Bank are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– The Chiba Bank 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.
Increasing wage structure of The Chiba Bank
– 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 The Chiba Bank.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, The Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank prominent markets.
Environmental challenges
– The Chiba Bank 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. The Chiba Bank can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
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 The Chiba Bank is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. The Chiba Bank needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– The Chiba Bank has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, The Chiba Bank needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.
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 The Chiba Bank business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, The Chiba Bank may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks sector.
Regulatory challenges
– The Chiba Bank 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 Regional Banks industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents The Chiba Bank with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks 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. The Chiba Bank 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Chiba Bank Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at The Chiba Bank 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 Chiba Bank 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 Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank 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 The Chiba Bank needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.