SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hazama Ando Corp (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hazama Ando Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, wage bills are increasing, increasing commodity prices, technology disruption,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hazama Ando Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hazama Ando Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hazama Ando Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hazama Ando Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hazama Ando Corp
Strengths of Hazama Ando Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hazama Ando Corp are -
High brand equity
– Hazama Ando Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hazama Ando Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Organizational Resilience of Hazama Ando Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Hazama Ando Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hazama Ando Corp is one of the leading players in the Construction Services 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Hazama Ando Corp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Construction Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Hazama Ando Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Hazama Ando Corp is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hazama Ando Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hazama Ando Corp in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Hazama Ando Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hazama Ando Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hazama Ando Corp digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Training and development
– Hazama Ando Corp has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hazama Ando Corp in Construction Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Hazama Ando Corp is one of the most innovative firm in Construction Services sector.
Weaknesses of Hazama Ando Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hazama Ando Corp are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Construction Services industry, Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Hazama Ando Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Construction Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Hazama Ando Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Hazama Ando Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
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 Hazama Ando Corp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hazama Ando Corp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hazama Ando Corp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Hazama Ando Corp, in the dynamic environment of Construction Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Hazama Ando Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Hazama Ando Corp has some of the most successful models in the Construction Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Hazama Ando Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Hazama Ando Corp is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Hazama Ando Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Hazama Ando Corp to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High dependence on Hazama Ando Corp ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hazama Ando Corp still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hazama Ando Corp has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Hazama Ando Corp needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hazama Ando Corp is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Construction Services industry, but Hazama Ando Corp needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hazama Ando Corp to focus more on services in the Construction Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Hazama Ando Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hazama Ando Corp are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Hazama Ando Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Construction Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Hazama Ando Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Hazama Ando Corp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Hazama Ando Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Construction Services industry. This can help Hazama Ando Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Hazama Ando Corp products in the Construction Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Hazama Ando Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Hazama Ando Corp 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, Hazama Ando Corp is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hazama Ando Corp can utilize new technology in the field of Construction Services 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Hazama Ando Corp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Construction Services 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hazama Ando Corp in the Construction Services industry. Now Hazama Ando Corp can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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, Hazama Ando Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hazama Ando Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Threats Hazama Ando Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hazama Ando Corp are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hazama Ando Corp 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 Construction Services industry.
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.
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. Hazama Ando Corp 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hazama Ando Corp 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 Construction Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Construction Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hazama Ando Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Hazama Ando Corp is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hazama Ando Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hazama Ando Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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
– Hazama Ando Corp 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.
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 Hazama Ando Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hazama Ando Corp in Construction Services industry. The Construction Services 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.
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. Hazama Ando Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hazama Ando Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp 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 Hazama Ando Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.