Tokyo Rope Mfg (5981) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Misc. Fabricated Products
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tokyo Rope Mfg (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tokyo Rope Mfg is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tokyo Rope Mfg can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tokyo Rope Mfg, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tokyo Rope Mfg
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tokyo Rope Mfg
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tokyo Rope Mfg
Strengths of Tokyo Rope Mfg | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Tokyo Rope Mfg are -
Learning organization
- Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tokyo Rope Mfg emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Tokyo Rope Mfg
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tokyo Rope Mfg does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Training and development
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Tokyo Rope Mfg is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Analytics focus
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Tokyo Rope Mfg in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Tokyo Rope Mfg has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tokyo Rope Mfg to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Tokyo Rope Mfg has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Tokyo Rope Mfg has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tokyo Rope Mfg staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Tokyo Rope Mfg is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Tokyo Rope Mfg is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This has provided Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Weaknesses of Tokyo Rope Mfg | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Tokyo Rope Mfg are -
High dependence on Tokyo Rope Mfg ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Tokyo Rope Mfg still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Fabricated Products industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Tokyo Rope Mfg has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Tokyo Rope Mfg products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Tokyo Rope Mfg has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Tokyo Rope Mfg should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Tokyo Rope Mfg is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Tokyo Rope Mfg to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Tokyo Rope Mfg, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Tokyo Rope Mfg has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tokyo Rope Mfg can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tokyo Rope Mfg is planning to shift buying processes online.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Tokyo Rope Mfg is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Tokyo Rope Mfg to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Tokyo Rope Mfg, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Tokyo Rope Mfg Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Tokyo Rope Mfg are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tokyo Rope Mfg to increase its market reach. Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Loyalty marketing
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Tokyo Rope Mfg can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tokyo Rope Mfg operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Tokyo Rope Mfg can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Tokyo Rope Mfg has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Tokyo Rope Mfg to build a more holistic ecosystem for Tokyo Rope Mfg products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tokyo Rope Mfg 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. Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Threats Tokyo Rope Mfg External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Tokyo Rope Mfg are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tokyo Rope Mfg 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. Fabricated Products sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Tokyo Rope Mfg is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Tokyo Rope Mfg has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Tokyo Rope Mfg 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. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tokyo Rope Mfg can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Tokyo Rope Mfg.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Tokyo Rope Mfg with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Environmental challenges
– Tokyo Rope Mfg 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. Tokyo Rope Mfg can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Increasing wage structure of Tokyo Rope Mfg
– 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg.
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. Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tokyo Rope Mfg Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg 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 Tokyo Rope Mfg needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.