SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
2. Improving business portfolio management of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
Strengths of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is present in almost all the verticals within the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This has provided Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
High brand equity
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is one of the most innovative firm in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Training and development
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Organizational Resilience of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has high operating costs in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku lucrative customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku to provide better information regarding Chemical Manufacturing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is just above the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Chemical Manufacturing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Chemical Manufacturing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can utilize new technology in the field of Chemical Manufacturing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can develop new processes and procedures in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku
– 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku.
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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku in Chemical Manufacturing industry. The Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry and other sectors.
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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Environmental challenges
– Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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.
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. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Chemical Manufacturing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku 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 Matsumoto Yushi Seiyaku needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.