Eagle Industry (6486) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Eagle Industry (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Eagle Industry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Eagle Industry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Eagle Industry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Eagle Industry operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Eagle Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Eagle Industry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Eagle Industry
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Eagle Industry
Strengths of Eagle Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Eagle Industry are -
Training and development
– Eagle Industry has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Eagle Industry has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Organizational Resilience of Eagle Industry
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Eagle Industry does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Eagle Industry has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Eagle Industry to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Eagle Industry has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Eagle Industry 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Eagle Industry is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Eagle Industry a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Eagle Industry are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Eagle Industry comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Learning organization
- Eagle Industry is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Eagle Industry is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Eagle Industry emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Eagle Industry in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Eagle Industry has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Eagle Industry to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Eagle Industry has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Eagle Industry have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Eagle Industry has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Eagle Industry to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Eagle Industry to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Eagle Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Eagle Industry are -
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Eagle Industry has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Eagle Industry is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Eagle Industry has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Eagle Industry is one of the leading players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry in last five years.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Eagle Industry has some of the most successful models in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Eagle Industry should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Eagle Industry has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry over the last five years. Eagle Industry 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 dependence on Eagle Industry ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Eagle Industry still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Eagle Industry has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Eagle Industry has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Eagle Industry has high operating costs in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Eagle Industry lucrative customers.
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 Eagle Industry supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Eagle Industry is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Eagle Industry vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Eagle Industry, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Eagle Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Eagle Industry are -
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 Eagle Industry 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Eagle Industry can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Eagle Industry to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Eagle Industry in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Now Eagle Industry can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Eagle Industry has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This can help Eagle Industry to build a more holistic ecosystem for Eagle Industry products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Eagle Industry in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Eagle Industry is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Eagle Industry can utilize new technology in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Eagle Industry can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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
– Eagle Industry can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Eagle Industry can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Eagle Industry can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
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. Eagle Industry can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Developing new processes and practices
– Eagle Industry can develop new processes and procedures in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Eagle Industry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Eagle Industry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Eagle Industry has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Eagle Industry to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Eagle Industry to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Eagle Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Eagle Industry are -
Regulatory challenges
– Eagle Industry 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Eagle Industry can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Eagle Industry may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Eagle Industry has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Eagle Industry needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Eagle Industry can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Eagle Industry prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Eagle Industry
– 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 Eagle 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. Eagle Industry will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Eagle Industry high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
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. Eagle Industry needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Eagle Industry 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Eagle Industry is facing in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Eagle Industry in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Eagle Industry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Eagle Industry needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Eagle Industry is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Eagle Industry is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Eagle Industry to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Eagle Industry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.