Showa Aircraft Industry (7404) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Manufacturers
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Showa Aircraft Industry (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Showa Aircraft Industry is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Showa Aircraft Industry can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Showa Aircraft Industry, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Showa Aircraft Industry operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Showa Aircraft Industry
2. Improving business portfolio management of Showa Aircraft Industry
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Showa Aircraft Industry
Strengths of Showa Aircraft Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Showa Aircraft Industry are -
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Manufacturers
– Showa Aircraft Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Showa Aircraft Industry in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Showa Aircraft Industry has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Showa Aircraft Industry to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Showa Aircraft Industry is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Showa Aircraft Industry digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Showa Aircraft Industry 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Showa Aircraft Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Training and development
– Showa Aircraft Industry has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Showa Aircraft Industry are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– Showa Aircraft Industry 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 Showa Aircraft Industry comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Analytics focus
– Showa Aircraft Industry 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– Showa Aircraft Industry has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Showa Aircraft Industry to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Showa Aircraft Industry to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Showa Aircraft Industry is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Showa Aircraft Industry is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Showa Aircraft Industry emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Showa Aircraft Industry | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Showa Aircraft Industry are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, Showa Aircraft Industry 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Showa Aircraft Industry has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry over the last five years. Showa Aircraft Industry even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Showa Aircraft Industry is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry in last five years.
Lack of clear differentiation of Showa Aircraft Industry products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Showa Aircraft Industry needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Showa Aircraft Industry has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Showa Aircraft Industry is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Showa Aircraft Industry, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Showa Aircraft Industry needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Showa Aircraft Industry can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Showa Aircraft Industry is planning to shift buying processes online.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Showa Aircraft Industry supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Showa Aircraft Industry is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Showa Aircraft Industry vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Showa Aircraft Industry has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Showa Aircraft Industry has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Showa Aircraft Industry Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Showa Aircraft Industry are -
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. Showa Aircraft Industry can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Showa Aircraft Industry 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 Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Showa Aircraft Industry is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Showa Aircraft Industry can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Showa Aircraft Industry 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 Showa Aircraft Industry in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Showa Aircraft Industry can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Showa Aircraft Industry 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Showa Aircraft Industry 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 Showa Aircraft Industry to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Showa Aircraft Industry can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Showa Aircraft Industry can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Loyalty marketing
– Showa Aircraft Industry 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
– Showa Aircraft Industry has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Showa Aircraft Industry to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Showa Aircraft Industry to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Showa Aircraft Industry to increase its market reach. Showa Aircraft Industry 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Showa Aircraft Industry can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Showa Aircraft Industry operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Threats Showa Aircraft Industry External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Showa Aircraft Industry are -
Regulatory challenges
– Showa Aircraft Industry needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry regulations.
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 Showa Aircraft Industry business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Showa Aircraft Industry is facing in Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Showa Aircraft Industry in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. The Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Showa Aircraft Industry has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Showa Aircraft Industry needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry are lowering. It can presents Showa Aircraft Industry with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Showa Aircraft Industry can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Showa Aircraft Industry can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Showa Aircraft Industry may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Auto & Truck Manufacturers sector.
Increasing wage structure of Showa Aircraft Industry
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Showa Aircraft Industry.
Environmental challenges
– Showa Aircraft Industry 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. Showa Aircraft Industry can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Showa Aircraft Industry will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
High 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. Showa Aircraft Industry needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Manufacturers industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Showa Aircraft Industry needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Showa Aircraft Industry to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Showa Aircraft Industry needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.