SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shibusawa Warehouse (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shibusawa Warehouse is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shibusawa Warehouse
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shibusawa Warehouse can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shibusawa Warehouse, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shibusawa Warehouse
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shibusawa Warehouse
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Trucking sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shibusawa Warehouse
Strengths of Shibusawa Warehouse | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry
– Shibusawa Warehouse is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shibusawa Warehouse has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shibusawa Warehouse staying ahead in the Trucking industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Shibusawa Warehouse is present in almost all the verticals within the Trucking industry. This has provided Shibusawa Warehouse 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
- Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shibusawa Warehouse emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shibusawa Warehouse in Trucking industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Shibusawa Warehouse has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shibusawa Warehouse in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Shibusawa Warehouse has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shibusawa Warehouse to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shibusawa Warehouse comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Trucking 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Trucking industry
– Shibusawa Warehouse has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shibusawa Warehouse to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Trucking industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shibusawa Warehouse to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
High brand equity
– Shibusawa Warehouse has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shibusawa Warehouse to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shibusawa Warehouse has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Trucking industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shibusawa Warehouse have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Shibusawa Warehouse | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
Employees’ less understanding of Shibusawa Warehouse strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Trucking industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shibusawa Warehouse is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shibusawa Warehouse to provide better information regarding Trucking products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shibusawa Warehouse is just above the Trucking industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shibusawa Warehouse, in the dynamic environment of Trucking industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shibusawa Warehouse has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Shibusawa Warehouse has some of the most successful models in the Trucking industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Shibusawa Warehouse should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Shibusawa Warehouse needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shibusawa Warehouse is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Trucking industry, but Shibusawa Warehouse needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shibusawa Warehouse to focus more on services in the Trucking industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High dependence on Shibusawa Warehouse ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shibusawa Warehouse still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Trucking industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shibusawa Warehouse has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Trucking industry, Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shibusawa Warehouse has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Trucking industry over the last five years. Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Shibusawa Warehouse Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Trucking industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shibusawa Warehouse 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. Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shibusawa Warehouse can develop new processes and procedures in Trucking 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shibusawa Warehouse can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shibusawa Warehouse has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shibusawa Warehouse to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shibusawa Warehouse to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Buying journey improvements
– Shibusawa Warehouse can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Trucking 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.
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. Shibusawa Warehouse can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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 Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shibusawa Warehouse can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shibusawa Warehouse operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shibusawa Warehouse can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Shibusawa Warehouse External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
Regulatory challenges
– Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry regulations.
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. Shibusawa Warehouse needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shibusawa Warehouse may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Trucking sector.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry and other sectors.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shibusawa Warehouse has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shibusawa Warehouse needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Increasing wage structure of Shibusawa Warehouse
– 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 Shibusawa Warehouse.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Trucking industry are lowering. It can presents Shibusawa Warehouse with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Trucking sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Trucking industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shibusawa Warehouse can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry.
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 Shibusawa Warehouse.
Environmental challenges
– Shibusawa Warehouse 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. Shibusawa Warehouse can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Trucking industry.
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 Shibusawa Warehouse in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shibusawa Warehouse is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shibusawa Warehouse Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
