Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Uacj Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Uacj Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Uacj Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Uacj 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 Uacj Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Uacj Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Uacj Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Uacj Corp
Strengths of Uacj Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Uacj Corp are -
Organizational Resilience of Uacj Corp
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Uacj Corp does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Uacj Corp has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Uacj Corp have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Uacj Corp in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Uacj Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Uacj Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Uacj Corp is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Uacj Corp in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Uacj 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Uacj Corp is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining 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.
Learning organization
- Uacj Corp 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 Uacj Corp is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Uacj Corp emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Uacj Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Uacj Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Uacj Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Uacj Corp 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Uacj Corp has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Uacj Corp 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Metal Mining industry
– Uacj Corp has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Uacj Corp to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Metal Mining industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Uacj Corp to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Uacj Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Metal Mining 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.
Weaknesses of Uacj Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Uacj Corp are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Uacj Corp has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Uacj Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Uacj Corp to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Uacj Corp needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Uacj Corp can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Uacj Corp is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Uacj Corp 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 Uacj Corp is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Uacj 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Uacj Corp, in the dynamic environment of Metal Mining industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Uacj Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Uacj Corp products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Uacj Corp needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Metal Mining industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Uacj 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.
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 Uacj Corp supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Uacj Corp is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Uacj Corp vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Uacj Corp has high operating costs in the Metal Mining industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Uacj Corp lucrative customers.
Uacj Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Uacj Corp are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Uacj Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Uacj Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Uacj 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Uacj Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Uacj Corp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Uacj Corp can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Uacj Corp has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Uacj Corp to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Uacj Corp to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Uacj Corp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Metal Mining industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Metal Mining industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Uacj Corp 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. Uacj Corp 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Uacj Corp has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Uacj Corp to build a more holistic ecosystem for Uacj Corp products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Uacj 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Uacj Corp 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Uacj Corp to increase its market reach. Uacj Corp 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Uacj 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 Uacj 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.
Threats Uacj Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Uacj Corp are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Uacj 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 Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Uacj Corp
– 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 Uacj Corp.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Uacj Corp is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Uacj 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 Uacj Corp prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Uacj Corp can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Uacj Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Uacj Corp 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 Metal Mining industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Metal Mining industry are lowering. It can presents Uacj Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Metal Mining sector.
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 Uacj Corp in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Uacj 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 Metal Mining industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Uacj 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 Uacj Corp business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Uacj Corp Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Uacj 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 Uacj 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 Uacj 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 Uacj 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 Uacj Corp needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.