Ride on Express (6082) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ride on Express (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ride on Express is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, technology disruption,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ride on Express can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ride on Express, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ride on Express
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ride on Express
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ride on Express
Strengths of Ride on Express | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ride on Express are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ride on Express has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ride on Express 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.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Ride on Express is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ride on Express in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ride on Express is one of the leading players in the Personal Services 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.
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ride on Express digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ride on Express 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ride on Express 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ride on Express in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Learning organization
- Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ride on Express emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Ride on Express has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ride on Express to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ride on Express is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Ride on Express 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.
Organizational Resilience of Ride on Express
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Ride on Express does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Innovation driven organization
– Ride on Express is one of the most innovative firm in Personal Services sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ride on Express has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Personal Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ride on Express have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses of Ride on Express | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ride on Express are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Ride on Express 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 Personal Services industry.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ride on Express needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Personal Services industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ride on Express can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ride on Express is planning to shift buying processes online.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ride on Express 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Ride on Express has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Ride on Express is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Ride on Express to provide better information regarding Personal Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Personal Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Ride on Express 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ride on Express, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal Services 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ride on Express products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ride on Express needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ride on Express is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Personal Services industry in last five years.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Ride on Express 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Ride on Express needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ride on Express Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ride on Express are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Ride on Express 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 Personal Services industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Ride on Express can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Ride on Express operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Personal Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ride on Express can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Buying journey improvements
– Ride on Express can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal Services 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Ride on Express has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Personal Services sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Ride on Express to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Ride on Express to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ride on Express 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ride on Express 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ride on Express can develop new processes and procedures in Personal Services 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ride on Express in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ride on Express can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Ride on Express 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.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Ride on Express can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats Ride on Express External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ride on Express are -
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 Ride on Express in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Regulatory challenges
– Ride on Express 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 Personal Services industry regulations.
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 Ride on Express.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ride on Express may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ride on Express 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ride on Express is facing in Personal Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ride on Express can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Ride on Express 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. Ride on Express can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ride on Express in Personal Services industry. The Personal Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ride on Express 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 Personal Services industry and other sectors.
Increasing wage structure of Ride on Express
– 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 Ride on Express.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express prominent markets.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ride on Express Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express 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 Ride on Express needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
