SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sun-Wa Technos (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sun-Wa Technos is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, there is backlash against globalization, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sun-Wa Technos can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sun-Wa Technos, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sun-Wa Technos
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sun-Wa Technos
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sun-Wa Technos
Strengths of Sun-Wa Technos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sun-Wa Technos are -
Training and development
– Sun-Wa Technos has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Sun-Wa Technos is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sun-Wa Technos has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sun-Wa Technos 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
– Sun-Wa Technos is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Sun-Wa Technos is present in almost all the verticals within the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This has provided Sun-Wa Technos 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 switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Sun-Wa Technos has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sun-Wa Technos to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sun-Wa Technos to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sun-Wa Technos has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sun-Wa Technos staying ahead in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Sun-Wa Technos has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sun-Wa Technos to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sun-Wa Technos in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Sun-Wa Technos has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sun-Wa Technos to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Sun-Wa Technos has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Sun-Wa Technos have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Sun-Wa Technos | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sun-Wa Technos are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sun-Wa Technos, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sun-Wa Technos has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sun-Wa Technos should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sun-Wa Technos, in the dynamic environment of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sun-Wa Technos has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sun-Wa Technos products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sun-Wa Technos needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Sun-Wa Technos supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sun-Wa Technos is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sun-Wa Technos vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sun-Wa Technos is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but Sun-Wa Technos needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sun-Wa Technos to focus more on services in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Employees’ less understanding of Sun-Wa Technos strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sun-Wa Technos 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Sun-Wa Technos Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sun-Wa Technos are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sun-Wa Technos has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This can help Sun-Wa Technos to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sun-Wa Technos products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sun-Wa Technos in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sun-Wa Technos in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Now Sun-Wa Technos can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Sun-Wa Technos can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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 Sun-Wa Technos 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sun-Wa Technos can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sun-Wa Technos has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sun-Wa Technos to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sun-Wa Technos to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Sun-Wa Technos External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sun-Wa Technos are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sun-Wa Technos can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Sun-Wa Technos 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, Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Sun-Wa Technos
– 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 Sun-Wa Technos.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sun-Wa Technos in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Sun-Wa Technos is facing in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sun-Wa Technos has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sun-Wa Technos needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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. Sun-Wa Technos needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electronic Instr. & Controls industry are lowering. It can presents Sun-Wa Technos with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry regulations.
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 Sun-Wa Technos business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sun-Wa Technos 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry and other sectors.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sun-Wa Technos Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos 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 Sun-Wa Technos needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.