NS United Kaiun Kaisha (9110) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for NS United Kaiun Kaisha (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , NS United Kaiun Kaisha is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, geopolitical disruptions, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of NS United Kaiun Kaisha

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that NS United Kaiun Kaisha can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the NS United Kaiun Kaisha, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of NS United Kaiun Kaisha can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of NS United Kaiun Kaisha
2. Improving business portfolio management of NS United Kaiun Kaisha
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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha

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Strengths of NS United Kaiun Kaisha | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of NS United Kaiun Kaisha are -

Innovation driven organization

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.

Ability to recruit top talent

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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.

Digital Transformation in Water Transportation industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For NS United Kaiun Kaisha digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of NS United Kaiun Kaisha in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of NS United Kaiun Kaisha in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. NS United Kaiun Kaisha has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps NS United Kaiun Kaisha to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled NS United Kaiun Kaisha to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped NS United Kaiun Kaisha to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Organizational Resilience of NS United Kaiun Kaisha

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of NS United Kaiun Kaisha comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.

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Weaknesses of NS United Kaiun Kaisha | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of NS United Kaiun Kaisha are -

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha lucrative customers.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, NS United Kaiun Kaisha needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but NS United Kaiun Kaisha needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help NS United Kaiun Kaisha to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at NS United Kaiun Kaisha, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. NS United Kaiun Kaisha has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as NS United Kaiun Kaisha is planning to shift buying processes online.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As NS United Kaiun Kaisha is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.

Employees’ less understanding of NS United Kaiun Kaisha strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Need for greater diversity

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

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NS United Kaiun Kaisha Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of NS United Kaiun Kaisha are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of NS United Kaiun Kaisha has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help NS United Kaiun Kaisha to build a more holistic ecosystem for NS United Kaiun Kaisha products in the Water Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, NS United Kaiun Kaisha is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Manufacturing automation

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for NS United Kaiun Kaisha in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help NS United Kaiun Kaisha to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects NS United Kaiun Kaisha can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Developing new processes and practices

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

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Threats NS United Kaiun Kaisha External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of NS United Kaiun Kaisha are -

High dependence on third party suppliers

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 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.

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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

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.

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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

Consumer confidence and its impact on NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry and other sectors.

Environmental challenges

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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. NS United Kaiun Kaisha can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation industry.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that NS United Kaiun Kaisha is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. NS United Kaiun Kaisha can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Regulatory challenges

– NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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.

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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of NS United Kaiun Kaisha Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha 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 NS United Kaiun Kaisha needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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