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Kakiyasu Honten (2294) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kakiyasu Honten (Japan)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kakiyasu Honten is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kakiyasu Honten


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kakiyasu Honten can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kakiyasu Honten, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kakiyasu Honten
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kakiyasu Honten
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kakiyasu Honten




Strengths of Kakiyasu Honten | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Kakiyasu Honten are -

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Kakiyasu Honten is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kakiyasu Honten in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Kakiyasu Honten has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kakiyasu Honten staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Learning organization

- Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Kakiyasu Honten emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Organizational Resilience of Kakiyasu Honten

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kakiyasu Honten does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Kakiyasu Honten in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

– Kakiyasu Honten is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Diverse revenue streams

– Kakiyasu Honten is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Training and development

– Kakiyasu Honten has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-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.

Innovation driven organization

– Kakiyasu Honten is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Kakiyasu Honten has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kakiyasu Honten have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Kakiyasu Honten has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kakiyasu Honten 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.






Weaknesses of Kakiyasu Honten | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Kakiyasu Honten are -

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Kakiyasu Honten needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Kakiyasu Honten can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Kakiyasu Honten is planning to shift buying processes online.

Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Kakiyasu Honten 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Kakiyasu Honten has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Kakiyasu Honten lucrative customers.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kakiyasu Honten, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kakiyasu Honten has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Kakiyasu Honten is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

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 Kakiyasu Honten supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kakiyasu Honten is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kakiyasu Honten vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Employees’ less understanding of Kakiyasu Honten strategy

– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kakiyasu Honten don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.

Lack of clear differentiation of Kakiyasu Honten products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kakiyasu Honten needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Need for greater diversity

– Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing industry.




Kakiyasu Honten Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Kakiyasu Honten are -

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Kakiyasu Honten has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Kakiyasu Honten to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kakiyasu Honten products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Kakiyasu Honten can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kakiyasu Honten to increase its market reach. Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kakiyasu Honten is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kakiyasu Honten can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Kakiyasu Honten has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kakiyasu Honten to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kakiyasu Honten to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Developing new processes and practices

– Kakiyasu Honten can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

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 Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing industry.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kakiyasu Honten 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.

Manufacturing automation

– Kakiyasu Honten can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.

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. Kakiyasu Honten can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.




Threats Kakiyasu Honten External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Kakiyasu Honten are -

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Kakiyasu Honten with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing 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. Kakiyasu Honten needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Increasing wage structure of Kakiyasu Honten

– 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 Kakiyasu Honten.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kakiyasu Honten can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Kakiyasu Honten high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.

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 Kakiyasu Honten in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Kakiyasu Honten has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Food Processing industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kakiyasu Honten needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Food Processing 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing 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 Kakiyasu Honten.

Environmental challenges

– Kakiyasu Honten 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. Kakiyasu Honten can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing industry.

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 Kakiyasu Honten business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kakiyasu Honten in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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 Kakiyasu Honten Template, Example


Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.



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