Bando Chemical Industries (5195) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Fabricated Plastic & Rubber
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Bando Chemical Industries (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Bando Chemical Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Bando Chemical Industries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Bando Chemical Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Bando Chemical Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Bando Chemical Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Bando Chemical Industries
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 Bando Chemical Industries
Strengths of Bando Chemical Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Bando Chemical Industries are -
Training and development
– Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Analytics focus
– Bando Chemical Industries 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Bando Chemical Industries in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Bando Chemical Industries is one of the most innovative firm in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Bando Chemical Industries is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– Bando Chemical Industries has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Bando Chemical Industries to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Bando Chemical Industries to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Bando Chemical Industries in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Bando Chemical Industries has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Bando Chemical Industries to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Bando Chemical Industries is present in almost all the verticals within the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This has provided Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Learning organization
- Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Bando Chemical Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Bando Chemical Industries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Bando Chemical Industries has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses of Bando Chemical Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Bando Chemical Industries are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Bando Chemical Industries, 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Bando Chemical Industries 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. Bando Chemical Industries should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Bando Chemical Industries has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Bando Chemical Industries 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Bando Chemical Industries is just above the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Bando Chemical Industries strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Bando Chemical Industries, in the dynamic environment of Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Bando Chemical Industries has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Bando Chemical Industries 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. Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Bando Chemical Industries is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but Bando Chemical Industries needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Bando Chemical Industries to focus more on services in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Bando Chemical Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Bando Chemical Industries are -
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 Bando Chemical Industries in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. Now Bando Chemical Industries can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Bando Chemical Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Bando Chemical Industries can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Bando Chemical Industries can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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. Bando Chemical Industries 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. Bando Chemical Industries can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Manufacturing automation
– Bando Chemical Industries can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Fabricated Plastic & Rubber 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Bando Chemical Industries has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Bando Chemical Industries to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Bando Chemical Industries can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Threats Bando Chemical Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Bando Chemical Industries are -
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. Bando Chemical Industries can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Environmental challenges
– Bando Chemical Industries 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. Bando Chemical Industries can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Increasing wage structure of Bando Chemical Industries
– 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 Bando Chemical Industries.
Regulatory challenges
– Bando Chemical Industries 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Bando Chemical Industries has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Bando Chemical Industries 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.
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 Bando Chemical Industries business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Bando Chemical Industries 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 Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry and other sectors.
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. Bando Chemical Industries needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Fabricated Plastic & Rubber industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Bando Chemical Industries Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries 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 Bando Chemical Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
