Shin Keisei Electric Railway (9014) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shin Keisei Electric Railway (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shin Keisei Electric Railway is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shin Keisei Electric Railway can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shin Keisei Electric Railway, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
Strengths of Shin Keisei Electric Railway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shin Keisei Electric Railway are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shin Keisei Electric Railway in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shin Keisei Electric Railway to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shin Keisei Electric Railway to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shin Keisei Electric Railway have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Innovation driven organization
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Organizational Resilience of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shin Keisei Electric Railway does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shin Keisei Electric Railway comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Analytics focus
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Learning organization
- Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Shin Keisei Electric Railway emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shin Keisei Electric Railway digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shin Keisei Electric Railway staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Shin Keisei Electric Railway | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shin Keisei Electric Railway are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Shin Keisei Electric Railway, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Transportation 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 Misc. Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shin Keisei Electric Railway is just above the Misc. Transportation 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shin Keisei Electric Railway is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shin Keisei Electric Railway, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shin Keisei Electric Railway has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shin Keisei Electric Railway is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shin Keisei Electric Railway to provide better information regarding Misc. Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shin Keisei Electric Railway is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shin Keisei Electric Railway vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Employees’ less understanding of Shin Keisei Electric Railway strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 dependence on Shin Keisei Electric Railway ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shin Keisei Electric Railway still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shin Keisei Electric Railway has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shin Keisei Electric Railway needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shin Keisei Electric Railway can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shin Keisei Electric Railway is planning to shift buying processes online.
Shin Keisei Electric Railway Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shin Keisei Electric Railway are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
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. Shin Keisei Electric Railway can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shin Keisei Electric Railway to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shin Keisei Electric Railway to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shin Keisei Electric Railway can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shin Keisei Electric Railway operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shin Keisei Electric Railway can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shin Keisei Electric Railway has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Shin Keisei Electric Railway to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shin Keisei Electric Railway products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shin Keisei Electric Railway to increase its market reach. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Shin Keisei Electric Railway in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now Shin Keisei Electric Railway can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Shin Keisei Electric Railway External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shin Keisei Electric Railway are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Shin Keisei Electric Railway
– 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shin Keisei Electric Railway may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shin Keisei Electric Railway is facing in Misc. Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway prominent markets.
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. Shin Keisei Electric Railway needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shin Keisei Electric Railway can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Shin Keisei Electric Railway with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shin Keisei Electric Railway Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway 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 Shin Keisei Electric Railway needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.