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 – technology disruption, increasing energy prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , wage bills are increasing, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
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 -
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Kakiyasu Honten in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Kakiyasu Honten has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Kakiyasu Honten to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
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.
Analytics focus
– Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing 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.
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.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Kakiyasu Honten is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
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.
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.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Kakiyasu Honten has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kakiyasu Honten to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kakiyasu Honten to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kakiyasu Honten comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Weaknesses of Kakiyasu Honten | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kakiyasu Honten are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Kakiyasu Honten, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kakiyasu Honten has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kakiyasu Honten should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Kakiyasu Honten has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Kakiyasu Honten 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.
High dependence on Kakiyasu Honten ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kakiyasu Honten still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kakiyasu Honten has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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.
Kakiyasu Honten Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kakiyasu Honten are -
Loyalty marketing
– Kakiyasu Honten 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kakiyasu Honten 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 Kakiyasu Honten to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Kakiyasu Honten in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kakiyasu Honten can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kakiyasu Honten operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Kakiyasu Honten 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. Kakiyasu Honten 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.
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.
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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kakiyasu Honten in the Food Processing industry. Now Kakiyasu Honten can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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.
Threats Kakiyasu Honten External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kakiyasu Honten are -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kakiyasu Honten is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kakiyasu Honten may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kakiyasu Honten 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 Food Processing industry.
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.
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.