SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Casio Computer (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Casio Computer is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Casio Computer can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Casio Computer, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Casio Computer
2. Improving business portfolio management of Casio Computer
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Jewelry & Silverware sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Casio Computer
Strengths of Casio Computer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Casio Computer are -
Learning organization
- Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Casio Computer emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Casio Computer 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 Jewelry & Silverware 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)
– Casio Computer has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Casio Computer staying ahead in the Jewelry & Silverware industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Jewelry & Silverware industry
– Casio Computer 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
– Casio Computer has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Casio Computer is one of the most innovative firm in Jewelry & Silverware sector.
High brand equity
– Casio Computer has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Casio Computer to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Jewelry & Silverware industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Casio Computer digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Casio Computer 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Casio Computer 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Casio Computer 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Casio Computer in Jewelry & Silverware industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Casio Computer has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Jewelry & Silverware industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Casio Computer have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Casio Computer | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Casio Computer are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Casio Computer has some of the most successful models in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Casio Computer should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Casio Computer has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Jewelry & Silverware industry over the last five years. Casio Computer 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Casio Computer is one of the leading players in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Jewelry & Silverware industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Casio Computer strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Casio Computer 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 dependence on Casio Computer ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Casio Computer still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Jewelry & Silverware industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Casio Computer has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Casio Computer 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Casio Computer is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Casio Computer to provide better information regarding Jewelry & Silverware products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Casio Computer needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Jewelry & Silverware industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Casio Computer can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Casio Computer is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, Casio Computer 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Casio Computer 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.
Skills based hiring in Jewelry & Silverware industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Casio Computer 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.
Casio Computer Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Casio Computer are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Casio Computer can develop new processes and procedures in Jewelry & Silverware 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
– Casio Computer 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Casio Computer 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Casio Computer can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Casio Computer is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Casio Computer can utilize new technology in the field of Jewelry & Silverware industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Jewelry & Silverware industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Casio Computer 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. Casio Computer 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.
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 Casio Computer 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Casio Computer has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Jewelry & Silverware sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Casio Computer to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Casio Computer can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Casio Computer has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Jewelry & Silverware industry. This can help Casio Computer to build a more holistic ecosystem for Casio Computer products in the Jewelry & Silverware industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Casio Computer in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Jewelry & Silverware industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Casio Computer can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Jewelry & Silverware 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.
Threats Casio Computer External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Casio Computer are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Casio Computer 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Jewelry & Silverware industry are lowering. It can presents Casio Computer with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Jewelry & Silverware sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Casio Computer 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Casio Computer 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Casio Computer 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 Jewelry & Silverware industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Casio Computer
– 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 Casio Computer.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Jewelry & Silverware industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Casio Computer can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Casio Computer in the Jewelry & Silverware sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Casio Computer may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Jewelry & Silverware sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Casio Computer is facing in Jewelry & Silverware sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Casio Computer in Jewelry & Silverware industry. The Jewelry & Silverware 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 Casio Computer Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer 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 Casio Computer needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.