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 – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs, 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 -
Organizational Resilience of Shibusawa Warehouse
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shibusawa Warehouse does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shibusawa Warehouse is one of the leading players in the Trucking 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.
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.
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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shibusawa Warehouse has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shibusawa Warehouse has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Innovation driven organization
– Shibusawa Warehouse is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.
Weaknesses of Shibusawa Warehouse | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shibusawa Warehouse has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Trucking industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shibusawa Warehouse needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Trucking industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shibusawa Warehouse can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shibusawa Warehouse is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Shibusawa Warehouse products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Shibusawa Warehouse needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Shibusawa Warehouse, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Trucking 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.
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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Trucking industry using digital technology.
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.
Shibusawa Warehouse Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
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.
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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shibusawa Warehouse is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shibusawa Warehouse can utilize new technology in the field of Trucking industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shibusawa Warehouse in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Trucking industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shibusawa Warehouse to increase its market reach. Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shibusawa Warehouse has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Trucking industry. This can help Shibusawa Warehouse to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shibusawa Warehouse products in the Trucking industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Threats Shibusawa Warehouse External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shibusawa Warehouse are -
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shibusawa Warehouse 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 Shibusawa Warehouse prominent markets.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Shibusawa Warehouse business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Shibusawa Warehouse 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.