SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fuji Nihon Seito (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fuji Nihon Seito is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices,
wage bills are increasing, geopolitical disruptions, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fuji Nihon Seito can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fuji Nihon Seito, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fuji Nihon Seito
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fuji Nihon Seito
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fuji Nihon Seito
Strengths of Fuji Nihon Seito | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fuji Nihon Seito are -
Organizational Resilience of Fuji Nihon Seito
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fuji Nihon Seito does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fuji Nihon Seito digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fuji Nihon Seito has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fuji Nihon Seito have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Fuji Nihon Seito is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Fuji Nihon Seito comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fuji Nihon Seito has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fuji Nihon Seito staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fuji Nihon Seito in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Fuji Nihon Seito has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Fuji Nihon Seito to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Fuji Nihon Seito to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fuji Nihon Seito has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fuji Nihon Seito 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
– Fuji Nihon Seito is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Fuji Nihon Seito is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Ability to lead change in Food Processing
– Fuji Nihon Seito is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Fuji Nihon Seito in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Fuji Nihon Seito | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fuji Nihon Seito are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Fuji Nihon Seito has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Fuji Nihon Seito is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Fuji Nihon Seito needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Fuji Nihon Seito to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Fuji Nihon Seito, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
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 Fuji Nihon Seito supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Fuji Nihon Seito is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Fuji Nihon Seito vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Fuji Nihon Seito needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fuji Nihon Seito has high operating costs in the Food Processing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fuji Nihon Seito lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fuji Nihon Seito is just above the Food Processing 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 Fuji Nihon Seito ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Fuji Nihon Seito still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Fuji Nihon Seito has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Fuji Nihon Seito strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Fuji Nihon Seito Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fuji Nihon Seito are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Fuji Nihon Seito can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Fuji Nihon Seito is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Fuji Nihon Seito can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Food Processing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fuji Nihon Seito has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fuji Nihon Seito to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fuji Nihon Seito to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Fuji Nihon Seito has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Fuji Nihon Seito to build a more holistic ecosystem for Fuji Nihon Seito products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Fuji Nihon Seito can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Fuji Nihon Seito can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fuji Nihon Seito 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. Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fuji Nihon Seito can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fuji Nihon Seito operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Threats Fuji Nihon Seito External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fuji Nihon Seito are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fuji Nihon Seito is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Food Processing 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.
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 Fuji Nihon Seito.
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 Fuji Nihon Seito business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Fuji Nihon Seito 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Fuji Nihon Seito may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Increasing wage structure of Fuji Nihon Seito
– 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 Fuji Nihon Seito.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Fuji Nihon Seito can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Fuji Nihon Seito with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fuji Nihon Seito Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito 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 Fuji Nihon Seito needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.