SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Daishi Hokuetsu Financial, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial
2. Improving business portfolio management of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial
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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial
Strengths of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Ability to lead change in Regional Banks
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
High brand equity
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Regional Banks industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Daishi Hokuetsu Financial digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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
- Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Daishi Hokuetsu Financial emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Daishi Hokuetsu Financial needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 dependence on Daishi Hokuetsu Financial ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Daishi Hokuetsu Financial vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Regional Banks industry.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.
Daishi Hokuetsu Financial Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
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. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Regional Banks industry. This can help Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to build a more holistic ecosystem for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial products in the Regional Banks industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Daishi Hokuetsu Financial operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Threats Daishi Hokuetsu Financial External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial are -
Environmental challenges
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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. Daishi Hokuetsu Financial can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Daishi Hokuetsu Financial is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Daishi Hokuetsu Financial with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Daishi Hokuetsu Financial in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Regional Banks industry and other sectors.
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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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.
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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial
– 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Daishi Hokuetsu Financial Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial 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 Daishi Hokuetsu Financial needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.