SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nissei Plastic Industrial (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nissei Plastic Industrial is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, geopolitical disruptions, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nissei Plastic Industrial
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nissei Plastic Industrial can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nissei Plastic Industrial, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic Industrial can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nissei Plastic Industrial
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nissei Plastic Industrial
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Capital Goods sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nissei Plastic Industrial
Strengths of Nissei Plastic Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nissei Plastic Industrial are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nissei Plastic 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.
High brand equity
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nissei Plastic Industrial to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has one of the best training and development program in Capital Goods 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 Nissei Plastic Industrial in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Nissei Plastic Industrial has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nissei Plastic Industrial to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Nissei Plastic Industrial is one of the leading players in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nissei Plastic Industrial to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nissei Plastic Industrial to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Capital Goods industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Nissei Plastic Industrial have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Nissei Plastic Industrial is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This has provided Nissei Plastic 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.
Learning organization
- Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic Industrial is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nissei Plastic Industrial emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nissei Plastic Industrial 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nissei Plastic 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Nissei Plastic Industrial is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Weaknesses of Nissei Plastic Industrial | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nissei Plastic Industrial are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nissei Plastic Industrial, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Nissei Plastic Industrial strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Nissei Plastic Industrial 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Nissei Plastic 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry over the last five years. Nissei Plastic 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Nissei Plastic Industrial, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Capital Goods industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nissei Plastic Industrial has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Nissei Plastic 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Nissei Plastic Industrial is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Nissei Plastic Industrial to provide better information regarding Misc. Capital Goods products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Nissei Plastic 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.
High dependence on Nissei Plastic Industrial ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nissei Plastic Industrial still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Capital Goods industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Nissei Plastic Industrial has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nissei Plastic Industrial has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
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 Nissei Plastic Industrial supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Nissei Plastic Industrial is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Nissei Plastic Industrial vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Nissei Plastic Industrial needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Capital Goods industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Nissei Plastic Industrial can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nissei Plastic Industrial is planning to shift buying processes online.
Nissei Plastic Industrial Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nissei Plastic Industrial are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nissei Plastic Industrial in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Buying journey improvements
– Nissei Plastic Industrial can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nissei Plastic 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Nissei Plastic Industrial can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Capital Goods industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Nissei Plastic Industrial can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Nissei Plastic Industrial can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Capital Goods 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Nissei Plastic 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Capital Goods sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nissei Plastic Industrial to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nissei Plastic Industrial to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Capital Goods industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nissei Plastic Industrial in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. Now Nissei Plastic Industrial can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Capital Goods industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Nissei Plastic Industrial 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. Nissei Plastic Industrial 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nissei Plastic 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Nissei Plastic Industrial has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Capital Goods industry. This can help Nissei Plastic Industrial to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nissei Plastic Industrial products in the Misc. Capital Goods industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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, Nissei Plastic Industrial can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nissei Plastic Industrial operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Capital Goods sector.
Threats Nissei Plastic Industrial External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nissei Plastic Industrial are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nissei Plastic Industrial has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Capital Goods industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nissei Plastic Industrial needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Capital Goods 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.
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 Nissei Plastic Industrial in the Misc. Capital Goods sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Nissei Plastic 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. Nissei Plastic Industrial can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Capital Goods industry.
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.
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. Nissei Plastic 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Nissei Plastic 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Capital Goods industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nissei Plastic Industrial 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 Nissei Plastic 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 Misc. Capital Goods industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nissei Plastic Industrial is facing in Misc. Capital Goods sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nissei Plastic Industrial 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. Capital Goods sector.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic Industrial 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. Nissei Plastic Industrial needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Capital Goods industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nissei Plastic Industrial in Misc. Capital Goods industry. The Misc. Capital Goods industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nissei Plastic Industrial Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic 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 Nissei Plastic Industrial needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.