SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Yutaka Giken (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Yutaka Giken is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
geopolitical disruptions, 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 Yutaka Giken can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yutaka Giken, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Yutaka Giken
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yutaka Giken
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Yutaka Giken
Strengths of Yutaka Giken | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yutaka Giken are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Yutaka Giken 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
– Yutaka Giken is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Yutaka Giken is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Yutaka Giken 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Yutaka Giken has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Yutaka Giken 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Yutaka Giken is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Learning organization
- Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Yutaka Giken emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Yutaka Giken has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yutaka Giken to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Yutaka Giken 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.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Parts industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Yutaka Giken digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Yutaka Giken 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Parts 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
– Yutaka Giken 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 Parts 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.
Weaknesses of Yutaka Giken | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Yutaka Giken are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Yutaka Giken, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Parts 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.
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 Yutaka Giken supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Yutaka Giken is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Yutaka Giken vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Yutaka Giken has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Yutaka Giken 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Yutaka Giken needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Parts industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Yutaka Giken can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Yutaka Giken is planning to shift buying processes online.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, Yutaka Giken 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Yutaka Giken has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Yutaka Giken lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Yutaka Giken 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 Parts industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Yutaka Giken is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Yutaka Giken to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Parts products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Yutaka Giken is just above the Auto & Truck Parts industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Skills based hiring in Auto & Truck Parts industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Yutaka Giken 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.
Yutaka Giken Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Yutaka Giken 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, Yutaka Giken can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yutaka Giken operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Yutaka Giken 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Yutaka Giken can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Parts industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
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. Yutaka Giken can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Yutaka Giken 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Yutaka Giken 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 Parts industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Yutaka Giken has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Auto & Truck Parts sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Yutaka Giken to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Yutaka Giken to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Yutaka Giken is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Yutaka Giken can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Parts industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Auto & Truck Parts industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Yutaka Giken can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Yutaka Giken 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Yutaka Giken 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 Parts industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Yutaka Giken 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. Yutaka Giken 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.
Threats Yutaka Giken External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Yutaka Giken are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Yutaka Giken 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Parts industry are lowering. It can presents Yutaka Giken with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Environmental challenges
– Yutaka Giken 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. Yutaka Giken can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Auto & Truck Parts industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Yutaka Giken can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Yutaka Giken 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. Yutaka Giken needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Yutaka Giken business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Yutaka Giken has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Yutaka Giken needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Increasing wage structure of Yutaka Giken
– 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 Yutaka Giken.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Yutaka Giken 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 Parts industry regulations.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Yutaka Giken.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yutaka Giken Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken 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 Yutaka Giken needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
