F.C.C. Co Ltd (7296) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Parts
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for F.C.C. Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , F.C.C. Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that F.C.C. Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the F.C.C. Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of F.C.C. Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of F.C.C. Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of F.C.C. Co Ltd
Strengths of F.C.C. Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of F.C.C. Co Ltd are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the F.C.C. Co Ltd 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– F.C.C. Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – F.C.C. Co Ltd staying ahead in the Auto & Truck Parts 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 F.C.C. Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Innovation driven organization
– F.C.C. Co Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of F.C.C. Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Parts
– F.C.C. Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled F.C.C. Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of F.C.C. Co Ltd in Auto & Truck Parts industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– F.C.C. Co Ltd 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.
Analytics focus
– F.C.C. Co Ltd 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 Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Parts industry
– F.C.C. Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– F.C.C. Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled F.C.C. Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. The sustainable margins have also helped F.C.C. Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of F.C.C. Co Ltd in the Consumer Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. F.C.C. Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps F.C.C. Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of F.C.C. Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of F.C.C. Co Ltd are -
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 F.C.C. Co Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, F.C.C. Co Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left F.C.C. Co Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of F.C.C. Co Ltd is just above the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Need for greater diversity
– F.C.C. 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, F.C.C. Co Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry over the last five years. F.C.C. 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 dependence on F.C.C. Co Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of F.C.C. Co Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Auto & Truck Parts industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though F.C.C. Co Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, F.C.C. Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help F.C.C. Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Parts products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of F.C.C. Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of F.C.C. Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, F.C.C. Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
F.C.C. Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of F.C.C. Co Ltd are -
Loyalty marketing
– F.C.C. 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.
Buying journey improvements
– F.C.C. Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for F.C.C. 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for F.C.C. Co Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, F.C.C. Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that F.C.C. Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for F.C.C. Co Ltd in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. Now F.C.C. Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. F.C.C. Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 F.C.C. 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, F.C.C. Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. F.C.C. Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Parts industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Auto & Truck Parts industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. F.C.C. 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– F.C.C. Co Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Threats F.C.C. Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of F.C.C. Co Ltd are -
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 F.C.C. Co Ltd in the Auto & Truck Parts sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. F.C.C. Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. Co Ltd prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. Co Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Parts industry are lowering. It can presents F.C.C. Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Parts 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. F.C.C. 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– F.C.C. 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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 F.C.C. Co Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that F.C.C. Co Ltd is facing in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on F.C.C. Co Ltd 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– F.C.C. 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.
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.
Environmental challenges
– F.C.C. 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. F.C.C. Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of F.C.C. Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. 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 F.C.C. Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
