SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maruzen Showa Unyu (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maruzen Showa Unyu is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, geopolitical disruptions, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
wage bills are increasing, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maruzen Showa Unyu
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maruzen Showa Unyu can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maruzen Showa Unyu, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maruzen Showa Unyu
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maruzen Showa Unyu
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Maruzen Showa Unyu
Strengths of Maruzen Showa Unyu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maruzen Showa Unyu are -
Digital Transformation in Trucking industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Maruzen Showa Unyu digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Trucking industry
– Maruzen Showa Unyu has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maruzen Showa Unyu to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Trucking industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maruzen Showa Unyu to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Maruzen Showa Unyu in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maruzen Showa Unyu emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Maruzen Showa Unyu
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maruzen Showa Unyu does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Maruzen Showa Unyu in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Maruzen Showa Unyu has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Maruzen Showa Unyu to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Trucking
– Maruzen Showa Unyu is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Trucking industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maruzen Showa Unyu in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Maruzen Showa Unyu is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Maruzen Showa Unyu is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Trucking industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Training and development
– Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Weaknesses of Maruzen Showa Unyu | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maruzen Showa Unyu are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Maruzen Showa Unyu is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maruzen Showa Unyu to provide better information regarding Trucking products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Maruzen Showa Unyu has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Maruzen Showa Unyu should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Maruzen Showa Unyu needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Maruzen Showa Unyu can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Maruzen Showa Unyu is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Maruzen Showa Unyu strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Trucking industry, Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Skills based hiring in Trucking industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
Lack of clear differentiation of Maruzen Showa Unyu products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Maruzen Showa Unyu needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
High dependence on Maruzen Showa Unyu ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Maruzen Showa Unyu still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Trucking industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Maruzen Showa Unyu has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Maruzen Showa Unyu has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Trucking industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Maruzen Showa Unyu, in the dynamic environment of Trucking industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Maruzen Showa Unyu has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Maruzen Showa Unyu Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maruzen Showa Unyu are -
Buying journey improvements
– Maruzen Showa Unyu can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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
– Maruzen Showa Unyu can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Maruzen Showa Unyu to increase its market reach. Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
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 Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Maruzen Showa Unyu has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Maruzen Showa Unyu to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Maruzen Showa Unyu to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Maruzen Showa Unyu in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Trucking industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Maruzen Showa Unyu can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Maruzen Showa Unyu operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Maruzen Showa Unyu is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maruzen Showa Unyu can utilize new technology in the field of Trucking industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Maruzen Showa Unyu 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. Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Threats Maruzen Showa Unyu External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maruzen Showa Unyu are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maruzen Showa Unyu in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.
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. Maruzen Showa Unyu needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Trucking industry regulations.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Maruzen Showa Unyu
– 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu.
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. Maruzen Showa Unyu 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maruzen Showa Unyu is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Maruzen Showa Unyu.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Trucking industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maruzen Showa Unyu may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Trucking sector.
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 Maruzen Showa Unyu in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Trucking industry are lowering. It can presents Maruzen Showa Unyu with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Trucking sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Trucking industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Maruzen Showa Unyu can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Maruzen Showa Unyu Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu 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 Maruzen Showa Unyu needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.