SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Takemoto Yohki (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Takemoto Yohki is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Takemoto Yohki can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Takemoto Yohki, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Takemoto Yohki
2. Improving business portfolio management of Takemoto Yohki
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Takemoto Yohki
Strengths of Takemoto Yohki | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Takemoto Yohki are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Takemoto Yohki comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Diverse revenue streams
– Takemoto Yohki is present in almost all the verticals within the Containers & Packaging industry. This has provided Takemoto Yohki 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Takemoto Yohki in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Takemoto Yohki has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Takemoto Yohki to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Analytics focus
– Takemoto Yohki 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 Containers & Packaging 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.
Training and development
– Takemoto Yohki has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
Organizational Resilience of Takemoto Yohki
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Takemoto Yohki does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Takemoto Yohki has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Takemoto Yohki staying ahead in the Containers & Packaging industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Learning organization
- Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Takemoto Yohki emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Takemoto Yohki has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Takemoto Yohki to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Digital Transformation in Containers & Packaging industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Takemoto Yohki digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Takemoto Yohki 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Takemoto Yohki is one of the most innovative firm in Containers & Packaging sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Takemoto Yohki in Containers & Packaging industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Takemoto Yohki | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Takemoto Yohki are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Takemoto Yohki is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Takemoto Yohki has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Containers & Packaging industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Lack of clear differentiation of Takemoto Yohki products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Takemoto Yohki needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Takemoto Yohki 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Containers & Packaging industry, Takemoto Yohki 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Takemoto Yohki has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry over the last five years. Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Containers & Packaging 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Takemoto Yohki is just above the Containers & Packaging industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High dependence on Takemoto Yohki ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Takemoto Yohki still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Containers & Packaging industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Takemoto Yohki has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Takemoto Yohki needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Containers & Packaging industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Takemoto Yohki can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Takemoto Yohki is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Containers & Packaging industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Takemoto Yohki 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Takemoto Yohki Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Takemoto Yohki are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Takemoto Yohki to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Takemoto Yohki to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Takemoto Yohki 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Containers & Packaging industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Takemoto Yohki in the Containers & Packaging industry. Now Takemoto Yohki can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Takemoto Yohki 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Takemoto Yohki 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Takemoto Yohki has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Containers & Packaging sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Takemoto Yohki to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Takemoto Yohki to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Takemoto Yohki to increase its market reach. Takemoto Yohki 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Takemoto Yohki can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Takemoto Yohki operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Containers & Packaging sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Takemoto Yohki can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Containers & Packaging 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Takemoto Yohki can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Takemoto Yohki 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Takemoto Yohki 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Takemoto Yohki in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Threats Takemoto Yohki External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Takemoto Yohki are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki prominent markets.
Regulatory challenges
– Takemoto Yohki 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 Containers & Packaging industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Takemoto Yohki 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. Takemoto Yohki can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry.
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. Takemoto Yohki 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.
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 Takemoto Yohki.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Takemoto Yohki is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Takemoto Yohki 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.
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 Takemoto Yohki in the Containers & Packaging sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Takemoto Yohki 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
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.
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 Takemoto Yohki business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Takemoto Yohki in Containers & Packaging industry. The Containers & Packaging 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Takemoto Yohki can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Takemoto Yohki Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki 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 Takemoto Yohki needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.