Uchida Yoko Co Ltd (8057) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Computer Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Uchida Yoko Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Uchida Yoko Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Computer Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd
Strengths of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd are -
Training and development
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Computer Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Uchida Yoko Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Uchida Yoko Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Uchida Yoko Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Computer Services
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Computer Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Uchida Yoko Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Computer Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Computer Services industry
– Uchida Yoko 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.
High brand equity
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Computer Services industry. This has provided Uchida Yoko 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Computer Services 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.
Weaknesses of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Uchida Yoko Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Computer Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Computer Services industry over the last five years. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Computer Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Computer Services industry in last five years.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Computer Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Uchida Yoko Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Computer Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Uchida Yoko 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, Uchida Yoko 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Uchida Yoko 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Computer Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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 Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Computer Services industry, but Uchida Yoko Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Computer Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Computer Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Uchida Yoko Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Computer Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Uchida Yoko 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. Uchida Yoko 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Uchida Yoko Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Computer Services sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
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. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Uchida Yoko 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Computer Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Uchida Yoko 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Computer Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Uchida Yoko Co Ltd in the Computer Services industry. Now Uchida Yoko Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Computer Services industry. This can help Uchida Yoko Co Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Uchida Yoko Co Ltd products in the Computer Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Threats Uchida Yoko Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd prominent markets.
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. Uchida Yoko 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Uchida Yoko Co Ltd is facing in Computer Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Uchida Yoko 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 Computer Services industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Computer Services industry are lowering. It can presents Uchida Yoko Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Computer Services 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd.
Regulatory challenges
– Uchida Yoko 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 Computer Services industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Uchida Yoko 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 Computer Services industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Uchida Yoko Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Computer Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Uchida Yoko Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Computer Services 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Computer Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Uchida Yoko 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Uchida Yoko Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko 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 Uchida Yoko Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.