Tamron Co Ltd (7740) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Scientific & Technical Instr.
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tamron Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tamron Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tamron Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tamron Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tamron Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tamron Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tamron Co Ltd
Strengths of Tamron Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tamron Co Ltd are -
Organizational Resilience of Tamron Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tamron Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Training and development
– Tamron Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Digital Transformation in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Tamron Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Learning organization
- Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tamron Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Tamron Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Tamron Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Tamron Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tamron Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Tamron Co Ltd in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tamron Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This has provided Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Tamron Co Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Ability to lead change in Scientific & Technical Instr.
– Tamron Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Tamron Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– Tamron Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Tamron Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Tamron Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Weaknesses of Tamron Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tamron Co Ltd are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Tamron Co Ltd 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Skills based hiring in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Tamron Co Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Tamron Co Ltd 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.
High dependence on Tamron Co Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Tamron Co Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Tamron Co Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Tamron Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tamron Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tamron Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tamron Co Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Tamron Co Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tamron Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tamron Co Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tamron Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tamron Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Tamron Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tamron Co Ltd are -
Buying journey improvements
– Tamron Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Tamron Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tamron Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tamron Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tamron Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tamron Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tamron Co Ltd 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. Tamron Co Ltd 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. Tamron Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tamron Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tamron Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Tamron Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tamron Co Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Tamron Co Ltd in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Now Tamron Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Tamron Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tamron Co Ltd are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tamron Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tamron Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tamron Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Tamron Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Tamron Co Ltd 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tamron Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd prominent markets.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tamron Co Ltd 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tamron Co Ltd in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. The Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Increasing wage structure of Tamron Co Ltd
– 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 Tamron Co Ltd.
Environmental challenges
– Tamron Co Ltd 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. Tamron Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Tamron Co Ltd 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tamron Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd 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 Tamron Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
