Kamigumi Co Ltd (9364) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Trucking
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kamigumi Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kamigumi Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, wage bills are increasing,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kamigumi Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kamigumi Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kamigumi Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kamigumi Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kamigumi Co Ltd
Strengths of Kamigumi Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kamigumi Co Ltd are -
Learning organization
- Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kamigumi Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kamigumi Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Trucking 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.
Organizational Resilience of Kamigumi Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kamigumi Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Trucking industry
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kamigumi Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Trucking industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kamigumi Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kamigumi Co Ltd in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kamigumi Co Ltd in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Kamigumi Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kamigumi Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Trucking industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kamigumi Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Kamigumi Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Trucking industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kamigumi Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kamigumi Co Ltd staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Kamigumi Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kamigumi Co Ltd are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Kamigumi Co Ltd is just above the Trucking 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Kamigumi Co Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kamigumi Co Ltd 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, Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Trucking industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Kamigumi Co Ltd is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Trucking industry.
Skills based hiring in Trucking industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kamigumi Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Trucking industry over the last five years. Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Kamigumi Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Trucking 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Kamigumi Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Trucking industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Kamigumi Co Ltd has high operating costs in the Trucking industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kamigumi Co Ltd lucrative customers.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Kamigumi Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Kamigumi Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Trucking products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Kamigumi Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kamigumi Co Ltd are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kamigumi Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
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. Kamigumi Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Trucking industry.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Kamigumi Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kamigumi Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kamigumi Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Developing new processes and practices
– Kamigumi Co Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Threats Kamigumi Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kamigumi Co Ltd are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Trucking industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd prominent markets.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
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. Kamigumi Co Ltd 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Trucking industry are lowering. It can presents Kamigumi Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Trucking sector.
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 Kamigumi Co Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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. Kamigumi Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Trucking industry.
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 Kamigumi Co Ltd in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kamigumi Co Ltd in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.
Increasing wage structure of Kamigumi Co Ltd
– 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kamigumi Co Ltd is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Trucking industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Kamigumi Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kamigumi Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kamigumi Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd 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 Kamigumi Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
