Yoshimura Food Holdings KK (2884) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Food Processing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Yoshimura Food Holdings KK (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Yoshimura Food Holdings KK, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK
2. Improving business portfolio management of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK
Strengths of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Yoshimura Food Holdings KK staying ahead in the Food Processing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High brand equity
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Food Processing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Yoshimura Food Holdings KK digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.
Analytics focus
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing 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.
Learning organization
- Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Yoshimura Food Holdings KK emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Diverse revenue streams
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is present in almost all the verticals within the Food Processing industry. This has provided Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Weaknesses of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK are -
High dependence on Yoshimura Food Holdings KK ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Food Processing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Employees’ less understanding of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 strategic competitive environment developments
– As Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Food Processing 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Yoshimura Food Holdings KK, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Yoshimura Food Holdings KK vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Food Processing industry, but Yoshimura Food Holdings KK needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to focus more on services in the Food Processing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to provide better information regarding Food Processing 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, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.
Yoshimura Food Holdings KK Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK are -
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Yoshimura Food Holdings KK operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
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. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Food Processing industry. This can help Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to build a more holistic ecosystem for Yoshimura Food Holdings KK products in the Food Processing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Food Processing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Yoshimura Food Holdings KK to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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.
Threats Yoshimura Food Holdings KK External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing industry and other sectors.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Yoshimura Food Holdings KK is facing in Food Processing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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.
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. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing industry.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Yoshimura Food Holdings KK may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Food Processing sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Yoshimura Food Holdings KK in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Yoshimura Food Holdings KK can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Regulatory challenges
– Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Food Processing industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Food Processing industry are lowering. It can presents Yoshimura Food Holdings KK with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Food Processing sector.
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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Yoshimura Food Holdings KK Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK 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 Yoshimura Food Holdings KK needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
