Imasen Electric Industrial (7266) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Auto & Truck Parts
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Imasen Electric Industrial (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Imasen Electric Industrial is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, increasing household debt because of falling income levels,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Imasen Electric Industrial
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Imasen Electric Industrial can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Imasen Electric Industrial, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Imasen Electric Industrial
2. Improving business portfolio management of Imasen Electric Industrial
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Imasen Electric Industrial
Strengths of Imasen Electric Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Imasen Electric Industrial are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Imasen Electric Industrial has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Imasen Electric Industrial staying ahead in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Auto & Truck Parts 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Imasen Electric Industrial 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
– Imasen Electric Industrial has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Training and development
– Imasen Electric Industrial has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Learning organization
- Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Imasen Electric Industrial emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Imasen Electric Industrial is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Digital Transformation in Auto & Truck Parts industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Imasen Electric Industrial digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Imasen Electric Industrial in Auto & Truck Parts industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Diverse revenue streams
– Imasen Electric Industrial is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
High brand equity
– Imasen Electric Industrial has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Imasen Electric Industrial to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Imasen Electric Industrial has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Auto & Truck Parts industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Imasen Electric Industrial have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Imasen Electric Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Imasen Electric Industrial are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Imasen Electric Industrial is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Imasen Electric Industrial to provide better information regarding Auto & Truck Parts products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Imasen Electric Industrial has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Imasen Electric Industrial has high operating costs in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Imasen Electric Industrial lucrative customers.
Lack of clear differentiation of Imasen Electric Industrial products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Imasen Electric Industrial needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Imasen Electric Industrial has some of the most successful models in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Imasen Electric Industrial 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, Imasen Electric Industrial needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Imasen Electric Industrial has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Auto & Truck Parts industry over the last five years. Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Imasen Electric Industrial Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Imasen Electric Industrial are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Imasen Electric Industrial can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Imasen Electric Industrial can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Imasen Electric Industrial to increase its market reach. Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Imasen Electric Industrial can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Parts 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, Imasen Electric Industrial can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Imasen Electric Industrial operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial 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
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Imasen Electric Industrial 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry.
Buying journey improvements
– Imasen Electric Industrial can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Imasen Electric Industrial is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Imasen Electric Industrial can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Parts industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Imasen Electric Industrial External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Imasen Electric Industrial are -
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 Imasen Electric Industrial business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Imasen Electric Industrial.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Imasen Electric Industrial in the Auto & Truck Parts sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Imasen Electric Industrial has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Imasen Electric Industrial needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Auto & Truck Parts 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 international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial 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. Imasen Electric Industrial will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Auto & Truck Parts industry are lowering. It can presents Imasen Electric Industrial with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Environmental challenges
– Imasen Electric Industrial 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. Imasen Electric Industrial can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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. Imasen Electric Industrial needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Imasen Electric Industrial Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial 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 Imasen Electric Industrial needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.