Ya-Man (6630) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Appliance & Tool
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ya-Man (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ya-Man is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ya-Man can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ya-Man, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ya-Man
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ya-Man
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Appliance & Tool sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ya-Man
Strengths of Ya-Man | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ya-Man are -
High brand equity
– Ya-Man has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ya-Man to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Ya-Man is one of the most innovative firm in Appliance & Tool sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Appliance & Tool industry
– Ya-Man is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Ya-Man
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ya-Man does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Ya-Man 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ya-Man 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.
Analytics focus
– Ya-Man 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 Appliance & Tool 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ya-Man in Appliance & Tool industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ya-Man has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Appliance & Tool industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ya-Man have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Appliance & Tool industry
– Ya-Man has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ya-Man to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Appliance & Tool industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ya-Man to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ya-Man has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ya-Man 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.
Training and development
– Ya-Man 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.
Weaknesses of Ya-Man | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ya-Man are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ya-Man has high operating costs in the Appliance & Tool industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ya-Man lucrative customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Ya-Man is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Appliance & Tool industry, but Ya-Man needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Ya-Man to focus more on services in the Appliance & Tool industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Ya-Man ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ya-Man still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Appliance & Tool industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ya-Man has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ya-Man has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Appliance & Tool industry over the last five years. Ya-Man 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ya-Man, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Appliance & Tool 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 Ya-Man, in the dynamic environment of Appliance & Tool industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Ya-Man has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Ya-Man 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 Appliance & Tool industry using digital technology.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ya-Man is just above the Appliance & Tool 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ya-Man has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Appliance & Tool industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Appliance & Tool industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Ya-Man 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
Employees’ less understanding of Ya-Man strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Ya-Man 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.
Ya-Man Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ya-Man are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ya-Man can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ya-Man can develop new processes and procedures in Appliance & Tool 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Appliance & Tool industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ya-Man 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. Ya-Man 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ya-Man can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ya-Man operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Appliance & Tool sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ya-Man 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Ya-Man to increase its market reach. Ya-Man 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Ya-Man 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.
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 Ya-Man 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ya-Man has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Appliance & Tool industry. This can help Ya-Man to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ya-Man products in the Appliance & Tool industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ya-Man is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ya-Man can utilize new technology in the field of Appliance & Tool industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Appliance & Tool industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ya-Man can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Ya-Man External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ya-Man are -
Regulatory challenges
– Ya-Man 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 Appliance & Tool industry regulations.
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. Ya-Man needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Appliance & Tool industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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 Ya-Man.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Ya-Man 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 Appliance & Tool industry.
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. Ya-Man 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Appliance & Tool industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ya-Man can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ya-Man 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Appliance & Tool industry are lowering. It can presents Ya-Man with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Appliance & Tool sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ya-Man may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Appliance & Tool sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ya-Man is facing in Appliance & Tool 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 Ya-Man in the Appliance & Tool sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Ya-Man Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man 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 Ya-Man needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
