SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Maezawa Kasei Industries (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Maezawa Kasei Industries is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions,
technology disruption, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Maezawa Kasei Industries
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Maezawa Kasei Industries can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Maezawa Kasei Industries, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Maezawa Kasei Industries
2. Improving business portfolio management of Maezawa Kasei Industries
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 Maezawa Kasei Industries
Strengths of Maezawa Kasei Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Maezawa Kasei Industries are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Maezawa Kasei Industries is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– Maezawa Kasei Industries has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Maezawa Kasei Industries to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Maezawa Kasei Industries to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Maezawa Kasei Industries has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Maezawa Kasei Industries have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Training and development
– Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Maezawa Kasei Industries in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Maezawa Kasei Industries emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Organizational Resilience of Maezawa Kasei Industries
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Maezawa Kasei Industries does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Maezawa Kasei Industries is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Maezawa Kasei Industries comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Ability to lead change in Misc. Fabricated Products
– Maezawa Kasei Industries is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Maezawa Kasei Industries in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Maezawa Kasei Industries digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Weaknesses of Maezawa Kasei Industries | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Maezawa Kasei Industries are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Maezawa Kasei Industries is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Maezawa Kasei Industries strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
High dependence on Maezawa Kasei Industries ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Maezawa Kasei Industries 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. Maezawa Kasei Industries 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, Maezawa Kasei Industries is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Maezawa Kasei Industries needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Maezawa Kasei Industries is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Maezawa Kasei Industries Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Maezawa Kasei Industries are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Maezawa Kasei Industries in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Maezawa Kasei Industries can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
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 Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Buying journey improvements
– Maezawa Kasei Industries can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Maezawa Kasei Industries has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. This can help Maezawa Kasei Industries to build a more holistic ecosystem for Maezawa Kasei Industries products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Maezawa Kasei Industries can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Maezawa Kasei Industries can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
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. Maezawa Kasei Industries 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. Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Maezawa Kasei Industries is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Maezawa Kasei Industries can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Threats Maezawa Kasei Industries External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Maezawa Kasei Industries are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
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 Maezawa Kasei Industries business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Increasing wage structure of Maezawa Kasei Industries
– 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries.
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 Maezawa Kasei Industries.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Maezawa Kasei Industries in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Maezawa Kasei Industries 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Maezawa Kasei Industries is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Maezawa Kasei Industries in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries 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 Maezawa Kasei Industries needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.