Naigai Trans Line (9384) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Water Transportation
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Naigai Trans Line (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Naigai Trans Line is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing energy prices,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Naigai Trans Line
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Naigai Trans Line can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Naigai Trans Line, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Naigai Trans Line
2. Improving business portfolio management of Naigai Trans Line
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Naigai Trans Line
Strengths of Naigai Trans Line | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Naigai Trans Line are -
Highly skilled collaborators
– Naigai Trans Line has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Naigai Trans Line have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Learning organization
- Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Naigai Trans Line emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Naigai Trans Line is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Naigai Trans Line 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.
Training and development
– Naigai Trans Line has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Naigai Trans Line comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Naigai Trans Line has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Naigai Trans Line 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Naigai Trans Line in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Naigai Trans Line is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Naigai Trans Line in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Naigai Trans Line in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Naigai Trans Line has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Naigai Trans Line to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Naigai Trans Line has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Naigai Trans Line to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Naigai Trans Line to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Naigai Trans Line has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Naigai Trans Line staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Naigai Trans Line are -
Employees’ less understanding of Naigai Trans Line strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Naigai Trans Line 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Naigai Trans Line needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on Naigai Trans Line ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Naigai Trans Line still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Naigai Trans Line has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
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 Naigai Trans Line supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Naigai Trans Line is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Naigai Trans Line vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, Naigai Trans Line 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Naigai Trans Line has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Naigai Trans Line 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, Naigai Trans Line is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Naigai Trans Line to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Naigai Trans Line needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Water Transportation industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Naigai Trans Line can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Naigai Trans Line is planning to shift buying processes online.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Naigai Trans Line is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Naigai Trans Line needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Naigai Trans Line to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Naigai Trans Line, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Naigai Trans Line has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Naigai Trans Line has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Water Transportation industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Naigai Trans Line Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Naigai Trans Line are -
Loyalty marketing
– Naigai Trans Line 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Naigai Trans Line 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Naigai Trans Line can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Water Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Naigai Trans Line can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Naigai Trans Line in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Water Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Naigai Trans Line has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Naigai Trans Line to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Naigai Trans Line to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Naigai Trans Line 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. Naigai Trans Line 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, Naigai Trans Line can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Naigai Trans Line operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Naigai Trans Line 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Naigai Trans Line can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Naigai Trans Line 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 Water Transportation industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Naigai Trans Line in the Water Transportation industry. Now Naigai Trans Line can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Naigai Trans Line are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Naigai Trans Line 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
– Naigai Trans Line 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 Water Transportation 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. Naigai Trans Line 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Naigai Trans Line can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Naigai Trans Line has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Naigai Trans Line needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Naigai Trans Line with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
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 Naigai Trans Line.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Naigai Trans Line
– 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 Naigai Trans Line.
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 Naigai Trans Line in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Naigai Trans Line may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Naigai Trans Line is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Naigai Trans Line 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Naigai Trans Line Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line 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 Naigai Trans Line needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.