Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
2. Improving business portfolio management of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
Strengths of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding are -
Training and development
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Learning organization
- Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Weaknesses of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is planning to shift buying processes online.
Lack of clear differentiation of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Water Transportation industry over the last five years. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 cash cycle compare to competitors
Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has high operating costs in the Water Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Water Transportation industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Increasing wage structure of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding
– 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding is facing in Water Transportation 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, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding prominent markets.
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. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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. Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Water Transportation industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding 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 Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.