Musashi Seimitsu Industry (7220) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Parts
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Musashi Seimitsu Industry (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Musashi Seimitsu Industry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models,
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
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Musashi Seimitsu Industry
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Musashi Seimitsu Industry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Musashi Seimitsu Industry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Musashi Seimitsu Industry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Musashi Seimitsu Industry
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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry
Strengths of Musashi Seimitsu Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Musashi Seimitsu Industry are -
Learning organization
- Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Musashi Seimitsu Industry emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Parts
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Parts industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Musashi Seimitsu Industry digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Analytics focus
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Musashi Seimitsu Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Musashi Seimitsu Industry are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Musashi Seimitsu Industry strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Musashi Seimitsu Industry needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Need for greater diversity
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Musashi Seimitsu Industry needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Parts industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Musashi Seimitsu Industry can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Musashi Seimitsu Industry is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Musashi Seimitsu Industry, 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.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Musashi Seimitsu Industry has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Musashi Seimitsu Industry lucrative customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Musashi Seimitsu Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in last five years.
Musashi Seimitsu Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Musashi Seimitsu Industry are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. Now Musashi Seimitsu Industry can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Musashi Seimitsu Industry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Musashi Seimitsu Industry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Auto & Truck Parts industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can help Musashi Seimitsu Industry to build a more holistic ecosystem for Musashi Seimitsu Industry products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Musashi Seimitsu Industry can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Musashi Seimitsu Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Musashi Seimitsu Industry are -
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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry.
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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Parts industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Musashi Seimitsu Industry can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Musashi Seimitsu Industry is facing in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry in the Auto & Truck Parts sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry prominent markets.
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. Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Musashi Seimitsu Industry in Auto & Truck Parts industry. The Auto & Truck Parts 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.
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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Musashi Seimitsu Industry has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Musashi Seimitsu Industry needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Musashi Seimitsu Industry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry 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 Musashi Seimitsu Industry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.