SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Opt Holding Inc (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Opt Holding Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
technology disruption, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Opt Holding Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Opt Holding Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Opt Holding Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Opt Holding Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Opt Holding Inc
Strengths of Opt Holding Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Opt Holding Inc are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Advertising industry
– Opt Holding Inc has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Opt Holding Inc to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Advertising industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Opt Holding Inc to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Opt Holding Inc in Advertising industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Opt Holding Inc is one of the most innovative firm in Advertising sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Opt Holding Inc has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Opt Holding Inc 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Opt Holding Inc is one of the leading players in the Advertising 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Opt Holding Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Opt Holding Inc staying ahead in the Advertising industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Strong track record of project management in the Advertising industry
– Opt Holding Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Opt Holding Inc 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 Advertising 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.
Digital Transformation in Advertising industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Opt Holding Inc digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Opt Holding Inc 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Opt Holding Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Advertising 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Opt Holding Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Advertising industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Opt Holding Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Opt Holding Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Opt Holding Inc are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Advertising industry, Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc, in the dynamic environment of Advertising industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Opt Holding Inc 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, Opt Holding Inc has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Advertising industry over the last five years. Opt Holding Inc 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Opt Holding Inc has some of the most successful models in the Advertising industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Opt Holding Inc should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Opt Holding Inc is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Advertising industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Opt Holding Inc, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Advertising 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 Opt Holding Inc needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Advertising industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Opt Holding Inc can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Opt Holding Inc is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Opt Holding Inc needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Opt Holding Inc has high operating costs in the Advertising industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Opt Holding Inc lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Opt Holding Inc has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Advertising industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Opt Holding Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Advertising industry, but Opt Holding Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Opt Holding Inc to focus more on services in the Advertising industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opt Holding Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Opt Holding Inc are -
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Opt Holding Inc has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Advertising industry. This can help Opt Holding Inc to build a more holistic ecosystem for Opt Holding Inc products in the Advertising industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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 Opt Holding Inc 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Opt Holding Inc can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Advertising 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Opt Holding Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Opt Holding Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Advertising sector.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Opt Holding Inc 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Opt Holding Inc can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Opt Holding Inc 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Opt Holding Inc to increase its market reach. Opt Holding Inc 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Opt Holding Inc to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Opt Holding Inc 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.
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. Opt Holding Inc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Opt Holding Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Opt Holding Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Opt Holding Inc are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Opt Holding Inc 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 Advertising industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Opt Holding Inc 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 Advertising industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Opt Holding Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Advertising industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Opt Holding Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Advertising 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents Opt Holding Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Opt Holding Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Advertising sector.
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. Opt Holding Inc needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Advertising industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Environmental challenges
– Opt Holding Inc 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. Opt Holding Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Opt Holding Inc is facing in Advertising sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Opt Holding Inc in the Advertising sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Opt Holding Inc
– 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 Opt Holding Inc.
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 Opt Holding Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Opt Holding Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc 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 Opt Holding Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.