Yomiuri Land Co Ltd (9671) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Recreational Activities
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Yomiuri Land Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
geopolitical disruptions, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yomiuri Land Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Recreational Activities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd
Strengths of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Recreational Activities industry. This has provided Yomiuri Land 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd in Recreational Activities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High brand equity
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yomiuri Land Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Yomiuri Land Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Yomiuri Land Co Ltd staying ahead in the Recreational Activities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Recreational Activities 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities 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.
Analytics focus
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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 Recreational Activities 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Yomiuri Land Co Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Yomiuri Land Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Recreational Activities industry
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Weaknesses of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Recreational Activities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has high operating costs in the Recreational Activities industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Yomiuri Land Co Ltd lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Yomiuri Land Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Recreational Activities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Need for greater diversity
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Recreational Activities industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Recreational Activities 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Yomiuri Land Co Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Yomiuri Land Co Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Recreational Activities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Recreational Activities industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Yomiuri Land Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Recreational Activities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Yomiuri Land 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.
Yomiuri Land Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yomiuri Land Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Recreational Activities sector.
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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Recreational Activities 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Recreational Activities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Yomiuri Land 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, Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Recreational Activities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Yomiuri Land 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. Yomiuri Land 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Recreational Activities industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Yomiuri Land Co Ltd in the Recreational Activities industry. Now Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Recreational Activities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Yomiuri Land Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Yomiuri Land Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Recreational Activities 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Yomiuri Land Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Recreational Activities industry are lowering. It can presents Yomiuri Land Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Recreational Activities sector.
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. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Yomiuri Land 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 Recreational Activities sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Yomiuri Land Co Ltd is facing in Recreational Activities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Yomiuri Land 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 Recreational Activities industry and other sectors.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Recreational Activities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Recreational Activities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Yomiuri Land 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Yomiuri Land 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 Recreational Activities industry regulations.
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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd in the Recreational Activities sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Yomiuri Land 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 Recreational Activities industry.
Environmental challenges
– Yomiuri Land 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. Yomiuri Land Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Recreational Activities industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Yomiuri Land Co Ltd in Recreational Activities industry. The Recreational Activities 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yomiuri Land Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land 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 Yomiuri Land Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
