Nissan Tokyo Sales (8291) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nissan Tokyo Sales (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nissan Tokyo Sales is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Nissan Tokyo Sales

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nissan Tokyo Sales can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nissan Tokyo Sales, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Nissan Tokyo Sales can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nissan Tokyo Sales
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nissan Tokyo Sales
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Specialty) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nissan Tokyo Sales

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Strengths of Nissan Tokyo Sales | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Nissan Tokyo Sales are -

Digital Transformation in Retail (Specialty) industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Nissan Tokyo Sales digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Nissan Tokyo Sales is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

Learning organization

- Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nissan Tokyo Sales emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Specialty) industry

– Nissan Tokyo Sales is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Nissan Tokyo Sales in Retail (Specialty) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Nissan Tokyo Sales 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

– Nissan Tokyo Sales has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Nissan Tokyo Sales to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to lead change in Retail (Specialty)

– Nissan Tokyo Sales is one of the leading players in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Specialty) industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Nissan Tokyo Sales in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Successful track record of launching new products

– Nissan Tokyo Sales has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Nissan Tokyo Sales has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nissan Tokyo Sales staying ahead in the Retail (Specialty) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Innovation driven organization

– Nissan Tokyo Sales is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Specialty) sector.

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Weaknesses of Nissan Tokyo Sales | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Nissan Tokyo Sales are -

Skills based hiring in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Specialty) industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Nissan Tokyo Sales has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Specialty) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nissan Tokyo Sales should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Specialty) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Nissan Tokyo Sales can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nissan Tokyo Sales is planning to shift buying processes online.

Lack of clear differentiation of Nissan Tokyo Sales products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Nissan Tokyo Sales has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Specialty) industry over the last five years. Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Retail (Specialty) industry using digital technology.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Nissan Tokyo Sales has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Retail (Specialty) industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Specialty) industry, Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

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Nissan Tokyo Sales Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Nissan Tokyo Sales are -

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. Nissan Tokyo Sales can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Manufacturing automation

– Nissan Tokyo Sales can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Retail (Specialty) 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Nissan Tokyo Sales has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Specialty) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nissan Tokyo Sales to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nissan Tokyo Sales to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Creating value in data economy

– The success of analytics program of Nissan Tokyo Sales has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Retail (Specialty) industry. This can help Nissan Tokyo Sales to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nissan Tokyo Sales products in the Retail (Specialty) industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.

Buying journey improvements

– Nissan Tokyo Sales can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Specialty) 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, Nissan Tokyo Sales is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Nissan Tokyo Sales can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Specialty) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.

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 Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Nissan Tokyo Sales in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Specialty) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nissan Tokyo Sales can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Specialty) industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nissan Tokyo Sales in the Retail (Specialty) industry. Now Nissan Tokyo Sales can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Nissan Tokyo Sales 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.

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Threats Nissan Tokyo Sales External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Nissan Tokyo Sales are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nissan Tokyo Sales in Retail (Specialty) industry. The Retail (Specialty) 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.

Increasing wage structure of Nissan Tokyo Sales

– 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales.

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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Retail (Specialty) industry.

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 Nissan Tokyo Sales business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

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. Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Specialty) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Nissan Tokyo Sales high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.

Environmental challenges

– Nissan Tokyo Sales 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. Nissan Tokyo Sales can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Specialty) industry.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Retail (Specialty) industry and other sectors.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Retail (Specialty) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nissan Tokyo Sales can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Nissan Tokyo Sales may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Specialty) sector.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Nissan Tokyo Sales is facing in Retail (Specialty) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Nissan Tokyo Sales has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Specialty) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Specialty) 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nissan Tokyo Sales Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales 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 Nissan Tokyo Sales needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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