Inageya Co Ltd (8182) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Grocery)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Inageya Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Inageya Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Inageya Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Inageya Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Inageya Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Inageya Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Grocery) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Inageya Co Ltd
Strengths of Inageya Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Inageya Co Ltd are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Inageya Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Inageya Co Ltd staying ahead in the Retail (Grocery) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Retail (Grocery) industry
– Inageya Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Inageya Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Retail (Grocery) industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Inageya Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Grocery)
– Inageya Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Grocery) industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Inageya Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Inageya Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Retail (Grocery) industry. This has provided Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Organizational Resilience of Inageya Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Inageya Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Inageya Co Ltd 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
– Inageya Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Inageya Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Inageya Co Ltd in Retail (Grocery) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Inageya Co Ltd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Inageya Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Inageya Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Grocery) industry
– Inageya Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Inageya Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Grocery) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Inageya Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Inageya Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Inageya Co Ltd are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Inageya Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Inageya Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Retail (Grocery) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Grocery) 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Inageya Co Ltd is just above the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Grocery) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Inageya Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Grocery) industry, but Inageya Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Inageya Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Retail (Grocery) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Inageya Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry over the last five years. Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Inageya Co Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Grocery) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Inageya Co Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Lack of clear differentiation of Inageya Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Inageya Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Grocery) industry, Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Inageya Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry in last five years.
Inageya Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Inageya Co Ltd are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Inageya Co Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Grocery) industry. This can help Inageya Co Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Inageya Co Ltd products in the Retail (Grocery) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Inageya Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Inageya Co Ltd 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.
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. Inageya Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Inageya Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Inageya Co Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Grocery) 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Inageya Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Inageya Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Grocery) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, 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 Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Inageya Co Ltd 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.
Threats Inageya Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Inageya Co Ltd are -
Regulatory challenges
– Inageya Co Ltd 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 Retail (Grocery) industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Grocery) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Inageya Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Inageya Co Ltd in Retail (Grocery) industry. The Retail (Grocery) 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Inageya Co Ltd is facing in Retail (Grocery) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Inageya Co Ltd
– 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 Inageya Co Ltd.
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 Inageya Co Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Inageya Co Ltd 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Inageya Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Grocery) sector.
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 Inageya Co Ltd.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Inageya Co Ltd 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 Retail (Grocery) industry and other sectors.
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 Inageya Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd 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 Inageya Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.