Tomato Bank Ltd (8542) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tomato Bank Ltd (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tomato Bank Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, geopolitical disruptions, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tomato Bank Ltd

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Tomato Bank Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Tomato Bank Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Tomato Bank Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Tomato Bank Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Tomato Bank Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Tomato Bank Ltd

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Strengths of Tomato Bank Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Tomato Bank Ltd are -

Learning organization

- Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Tomato Bank Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Organizational Resilience of Tomato Bank Ltd

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Tomato Bank Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Training and development

– Tomato Bank Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Tomato Bank Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.

High brand equity

– Tomato Bank Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Tomato Bank Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Tomato Bank Ltd is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks 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.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Analytics focus

– Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Regional Banks 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 Tomato Bank Ltd in the Financial sector have low bargaining power. Tomato Bank Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Tomato Bank Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Tomato Bank Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Tomato Bank Ltd staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Diverse revenue streams

– Tomato Bank Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Regional Banks industry. This has provided Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Tomato Bank Ltd in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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Weaknesses of Tomato Bank Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Tomato Bank Ltd are -

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Regional Banks industry, Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Tomato Bank Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Tomato Bank Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Regional Banks industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Tomato Bank Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Tomato Bank Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Regional Banks industry.

Need for greater diversity

– Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

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 Tomato Bank Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Tomato Bank Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tomato Bank Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tomato Bank Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Tomato Bank Ltd even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Tomato Bank Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Tomato Bank Ltd has some of the most successful models in the Regional Banks industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Tomato Bank Ltd should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Tomato Bank Ltd is just above the Regional Banks 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.

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Tomato Bank Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Tomato Bank Ltd are -

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Tomato Bank Ltd to increase its market reach. Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Tomato Bank Ltd 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. Tomato Bank Ltd 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, Tomato Bank Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tomato Bank Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Regional Banks industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

Developing new processes and practices

– Tomato Bank Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Regional Banks 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Tomato Bank Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tomato Bank Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tomato Bank Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Tomato Bank Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Loyalty marketing

– Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Regional Banks industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Tomato Bank Ltd in the Regional Banks industry. Now Tomato Bank Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

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. Tomato Bank Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

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Threats Tomato Bank Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Tomato Bank Ltd are -

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. Tomato Bank Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

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 Tomato Bank Ltd in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Tomato Bank Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Tomato Bank Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Regional Banks 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tomato Bank Ltd in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Tomato Bank Ltd is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

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 Tomato Bank Ltd.

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 Tomato Bank Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Regional Banks industry are lowering. It can presents Tomato Bank Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Regional Banks sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Tomato Bank Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Regional Banks industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tomato Bank Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Regional Banks 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.

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. Tomato Bank Ltd 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tomato Bank Ltd Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd 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 Tomato Bank Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

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