Roland DG Corp (6789) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Roland DG Corp (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Roland DG Corp is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Roland DG Corp

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Roland DG Corp can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Roland DG Corp, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Roland DG Corp 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Roland DG Corp can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Roland DG Corp
2. Improving business portfolio management of Roland DG Corp
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Computer Peripherals sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Roland DG Corp

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Strengths of Roland DG Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Roland DG Corp are -

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Roland DG Corp in Computer Peripherals industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Diverse revenue streams

– Roland DG Corp is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Peripherals industry. This has provided Roland DG Corp 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.

Learning organization

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

Organizational Resilience of Roland DG Corp

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Roland DG Corp is one of the leading players in the Computer Peripherals 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Roland DG Corp 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

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

High brand equity

– Roland DG Corp has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Roland DG Corp to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Training and development

– Roland DG Corp has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Roland DG Corp has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Roland DG Corp staying ahead in the Computer Peripherals 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 Roland DG Corp comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Computer Peripherals 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.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Roland DG Corp in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Roland DG Corp has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Roland DG Corp to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

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Weaknesses of Roland DG Corp | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Roland DG Corp are -

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

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Roland DG Corp is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Roland DG Corp to provide better information regarding Computer Peripherals products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Computer Peripherals industry, Roland DG Corp 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 Roland DG Corp, in the dynamic environment of Computer Peripherals industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Roland DG Corp has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Roland DG Corp 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 Computer Peripherals industry using digital technology.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Roland DG Corp has some of the most successful models in the Computer Peripherals industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Roland DG Corp should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Peripherals industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Roland DG Corp 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 Computer Peripherals industry.

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Skills based hiring in Computer Peripherals industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Roland DG Corp 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.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Roland DG Corp has high operating costs in the Computer Peripherals industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Roland DG Corp lucrative customers.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Roland DG Corp, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Computer Peripherals 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.

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Roland DG Corp Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Roland DG Corp are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Roland DG Corp 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Roland DG Corp 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 Roland DG Corp to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Roland DG Corp 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Computer Peripherals industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Roland DG Corp 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. Roland DG Corp 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 Roland DG Corp to increase its market reach. Roland DG Corp 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.

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. Roland DG Corp can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Roland DG Corp can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Roland DG Corp can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Roland DG Corp operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Peripherals sector.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Roland DG Corp in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Computer Peripherals industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Manufacturing automation

– Roland DG Corp can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Computer Peripherals 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Roland DG Corp 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.

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 Roland DG Corp 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.

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Threats Roland DG Corp External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Roland DG Corp are -

Environmental challenges

– Roland DG Corp 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. Roland DG Corp can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Computer Peripherals industry.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Roland DG Corp has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Peripherals industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Roland DG Corp needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Peripherals 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

– Roland DG Corp 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 Computer Peripherals industry regulations.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Roland DG Corp 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 Computer Peripherals industry and other sectors.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Roland DG Corp may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Computer Peripherals sector.

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 Roland DG Corp.

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. Roland DG Corp 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Peripherals industry are lowering. It can presents Roland DG Corp with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Peripherals sector.

Aging population

– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.

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 Roland DG Corp in the Computer Peripherals sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Roland DG Corp is facing in Computer Peripherals sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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. Roland DG Corp needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Computer Peripherals industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Easy access to finance

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

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Roland DG Corp Template, Example

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

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