Saint-Care (2374) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Saint-Care (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Saint-Care is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, technology disruption, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Saint-Care can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Saint-Care, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Saint-Care
2. Improving business portfolio management of Saint-Care
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 Saint-Care
Strengths of Saint-Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Saint-Care are -
Ability to recruit top talent
– Saint-Care 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.
Organizational Resilience of Saint-Care
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Saint-Care does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Saint-Care digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Saint-Care 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Saint-Care is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Saint-Care has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Saint-Care 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.
Training and development
– Saint-Care has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Saint-Care 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Saint-Care in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Saint-Care has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Saint-Care to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Learning organization
- Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Saint-Care emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Saint-Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Saint-Care are -
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Saint-Care needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Saint-Care, in the dynamic environment of Personal Services industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Saint-Care has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Saint-Care, 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.
Skills based hiring in Personal Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Saint-Care 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Saint-Care is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Saint-Care to provide better information regarding Personal Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Saint-Care 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 Personal Services industry using digital technology.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Saint-Care is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Saint-Care needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Saint-Care to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Saint-Care has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Personal Services industry over the last five years. Saint-Care 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Saint-Care has some of the most successful models in the Personal Services industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Saint-Care should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Saint-Care 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 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 Saint-Care supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Saint-Care is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Saint-Care vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Saint-Care Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Saint-Care are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Saint-Care can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Saint-Care operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Saint-Care 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Saint-Care 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.
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. Saint-Care can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Saint-Care 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. Saint-Care 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Saint-Care 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Saint-Care in the Personal Services industry. Now Saint-Care can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Saint-Care can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Buying journey improvements
– Saint-Care 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Saint-Care 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Saint-Care to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
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 Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Saint-Care are -
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Saint-Care has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Saint-Care needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal Services 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.
Environmental challenges
– Saint-Care 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. Saint-Care can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
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 Saint-Care.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Saint-Care with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Saint-Care 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.
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 Saint-Care business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, 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 Saint-Care in the Personal Services sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Saint-Care 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.
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. Saint-Care can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Saint-Care
– 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 Saint-Care.
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
– Saint-Care 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 Personal Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Saint-Care Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care 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 Saint-Care needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
