Shin Pro Maint (6086) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Business Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shin Pro Maint (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shin Pro Maint is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shin Pro Maint can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shin Pro Maint, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shin Pro Maint
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shin Pro Maint
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shin Pro Maint
Strengths of Shin Pro Maint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shin Pro Maint are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shin Pro Maint has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shin Pro Maint 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Business Services industry
– Shin Pro Maint has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shin Pro Maint to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Business Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shin Pro Maint to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Shin Pro Maint has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Shin Pro Maint have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shin Pro Maint in Business Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shin Pro Maint comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Business Services 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry
– Shin Pro Maint 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 Business Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shin Pro Maint digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shin Pro Maint has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Shin Pro Maint 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Shin Pro Maint is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.
High brand equity
– Shin Pro Maint has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shin Pro Maint to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Shin Pro Maint in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Shin Pro Maint has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Shin Pro Maint to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Shin Pro Maint has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Shin Pro Maint staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Shin Pro Maint | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shin Pro Maint are -
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Shin Pro Maint 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shin Pro Maint has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Business Services industry over the last five years. Shin Pro Maint 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.
Skills based hiring in Business Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Shin Pro Maint 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shin Pro Maint is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Shin Pro Maint needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shin Pro Maint to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shin Pro Maint is just above the Business Services 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shin Pro Maint is one of the leading players in the Business Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Business Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Shin Pro Maint has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Shin Pro Maint lucrative customers.
High dependence on Shin Pro Maint ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Shin Pro Maint still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Shin Pro Maint has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Shin Pro Maint needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Employees’ less understanding of Shin Pro Maint strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Shin Pro Maint 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.
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 Shin Pro Maint supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Shin Pro Maint is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Shin Pro Maint vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Shin Pro Maint Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shin Pro Maint are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Shin Pro Maint in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shin Pro Maint can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shin Pro Maint operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Business Services sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Shin Pro Maint 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Shin Pro Maint 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 Business Services industry.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Shin Pro Maint in the Business Services industry. Now Shin Pro Maint can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Shin Pro Maint 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Shin Pro Maint has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Business Services industry. This can help Shin Pro Maint to build a more holistic ecosystem for Shin Pro Maint products in the Business Services industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shin Pro Maint to increase its market reach. Shin Pro Maint 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.
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 Shin Pro Maint 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Shin Pro Maint 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Shin Pro Maint can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Loyalty marketing
– Shin Pro Maint 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.
Threats Shin Pro Maint External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shin Pro Maint are -
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shin Pro Maint 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 Business Services industry.
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.
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 Shin Pro Maint in the Business Services sector and impact the bottomline 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. Shin Pro Maint needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Business Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Shin Pro Maint in Business Services industry. The Business Services industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Environmental challenges
– Shin Pro Maint 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. Shin Pro Maint can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Business Services industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Shin Pro Maint 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 Business Services industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shin Pro Maint is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shin Pro Maint has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shin Pro Maint needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shin Pro Maint can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Shin Pro Maint business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Shin Pro Maint Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint 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 Shin Pro Maint needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
