SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Golf Digest Online (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Golf Digest Online is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Golf Digest Online
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Golf Digest Online can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Golf Digest Online, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Golf Digest Online
2. Improving business portfolio management of Golf Digest Online
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Golf Digest Online
Strengths of Golf Digest Online | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Golf Digest Online are -
Strong track record of project management in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– Golf Digest Online is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Golf Digest Online digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Golf Digest Online 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Golf Digest Online in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Golf Digest Online has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Golf Digest Online staying ahead in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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 Golf Digest Online 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.
Learning organization
- Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Golf Digest Online emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Golf Digest Online is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Golf Digest Online in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Golf Digest Online has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Golf Digest Online to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Golf Digest Online comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Golf Digest Online has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Golf Digest Online have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order)
– Golf Digest Online is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Golf Digest Online in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Golf Digest Online has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Golf Digest Online 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.
Weaknesses of Golf Digest Online | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Golf Digest Online are -
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 Golf Digest Online supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Golf Digest Online is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Golf Digest Online vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Golf Digest Online has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry over the last five years. Golf Digest Online 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, Golf Digest Online needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Golf Digest Online strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Golf Digest Online 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Golf Digest Online is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Golf Digest Online to provide better information regarding Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Golf Digest Online, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Golf Digest Online, in the dynamic environment of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Golf Digest Online has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, Golf Digest Online 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Golf Digest Online 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Golf Digest Online is one of the leading players in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry in last five years.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Golf Digest Online 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.
Golf Digest Online Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Golf Digest Online are -
Loyalty marketing
– Golf Digest Online 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Golf Digest Online can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Golf Digest Online in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Golf Digest Online 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Golf Digest Online can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Golf Digest Online operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Golf Digest Online has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Golf Digest Online to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Golf Digest Online 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, Golf Digest Online 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Golf Digest Online is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Golf Digest Online can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Golf Digest Online to increase its market reach. Golf Digest Online 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Golf Digest Online 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Golf Digest Online can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Threats Golf Digest Online External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Golf Digest Online are -
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry are lowering. It can presents Golf Digest Online with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
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. Golf Digest Online 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.
Environmental challenges
– Golf Digest Online 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. Golf Digest Online can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Golf Digest Online 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.
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 Golf Digest Online business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Golf Digest Online 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Golf Digest Online 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry regulations.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online prominent markets.
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 Golf Digest Online.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Golf Digest Online 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 Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Golf Digest Online in Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) industry. The Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Golf Digest Online may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Catalog & Mail Order) sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Golf Digest Online Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online 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 Golf Digest Online needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.