Cocokara Fine Inc (3098) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Drugs)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Cocokara Fine Inc (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Cocokara Fine Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Cocokara Fine Inc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Cocokara Fine Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Cocokara Fine Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Cocokara Fine Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Cocokara Fine Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Drugs) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Cocokara Fine Inc
Strengths of Cocokara Fine Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Cocokara Fine Inc are -
Training and development
– Cocokara Fine Inc has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Organizational Resilience of Cocokara Fine Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Cocokara Fine Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Cocokara Fine Inc in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Cocokara Fine Inc has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Cocokara Fine Inc to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Cocokara Fine Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Drugs) 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
– Cocokara Fine Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Drugs) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Cocokara Fine Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Drugs)
– Cocokara Fine Inc is one of the leading players in the Retail (Drugs) industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Drugs) industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Cocokara Fine Inc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Cocokara Fine Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Cocokara Fine Inc is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Drugs) industry. This has provided Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Drugs) industry
– Cocokara Fine Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Cocokara Fine Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Drugs) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Cocokara Fine Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc in Retail (Drugs) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Cocokara Fine Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Cocokara Fine Inc are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Cocokara Fine Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Cocokara Fine Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Drugs) 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Cocokara Fine Inc, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Drugs) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Cocokara Fine Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Cocokara Fine Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Drugs) industry, but Cocokara Fine Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Cocokara Fine Inc to focus more on services in the Retail (Drugs) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Drugs) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Cocokara Fine Inc 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Cocokara Fine Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Drugs) industry over the last five years. Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Cocokara Fine Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Cocokara Fine Inc 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, Cocokara Fine Inc has high operating costs in the Retail (Drugs) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Cocokara Fine Inc lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Retail (Drugs) industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Cocokara Fine Inc ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Cocokara Fine Inc still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Drugs) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Cocokara Fine Inc has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Cocokara Fine Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Cocokara Fine Inc are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Cocokara Fine Inc has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Drugs) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Cocokara Fine Inc to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Cocokara Fine Inc to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Cocokara Fine Inc can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Drugs) 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Drugs) industry. This can help Cocokara Fine Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Cocokara Fine Inc products in the Retail (Drugs) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Cocokara Fine Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Cocokara Fine Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Drugs) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Cocokara Fine Inc to increase its market reach. Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Retail (Drugs) industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Cocokara Fine Inc can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Drugs) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Cocokara Fine Inc 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. Cocokara Fine Inc 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Cocokara Fine Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Drugs) 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.
Threats Cocokara Fine Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Cocokara Fine Inc are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Retail (Drugs) industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Cocokara Fine Inc in Retail (Drugs) industry. The Retail (Drugs) 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.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc prominent markets.
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 Cocokara Fine Inc in the Retail (Drugs) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Retail (Drugs) industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Retail (Drugs) industry and other sectors.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Drugs) industry are lowering. It can presents Cocokara Fine Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Drugs) sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Cocokara Fine Inc is facing in Retail (Drugs) 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 Cocokara Fine Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Cocokara Fine Inc
– 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 Cocokara Fine Inc.
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. Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc 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 Cocokara Fine Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.