SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Thine Electronics (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Thine Electronics is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is increasing trade war between United States & China, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
wage bills are increasing, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Thine Electronics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Thine Electronics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Thine Electronics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Thine Electronics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Thine Electronics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Semiconductors sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Thine Electronics
Strengths of Thine Electronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Thine Electronics are -
Analytics focus
– Thine Electronics 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 Semiconductors 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Thine Electronics is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Thine Electronics is present in almost all the verticals within the Semiconductors industry. This has provided Thine Electronics 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.
Ability to lead change in Semiconductors
– Thine Electronics is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Semiconductors industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Thine Electronics in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Digital Transformation in Semiconductors industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Thine Electronics digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Thine Electronics 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Thine Electronics has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Semiconductors industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Thine Electronics have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Thine Electronics has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Thine Electronics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Thine Electronics staying ahead in the Semiconductors industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Thine Electronics in Semiconductors industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Thine Electronics 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Thine Electronics in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Thine Electronics has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Thine Electronics to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Innovation driven organization
– Thine Electronics is one of the most innovative firm in Semiconductors sector.
Weaknesses of Thine Electronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thine Electronics are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Thine Electronics is one of the leading players in the Semiconductors industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Semiconductors industry in last five years.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Thine Electronics has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Semiconductors industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Thine Electronics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Semiconductors industry over the last five years. Thine Electronics 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Thine Electronics is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Thine Electronics to provide better information regarding Semiconductors products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Thine Electronics is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Semiconductors industry, but Thine Electronics needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Thine Electronics to focus more on services in the Semiconductors industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Semiconductors industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Thine Electronics is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the Semiconductors industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Thine Electronics products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Thine Electronics needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Thine Electronics 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Thine Electronics needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Semiconductors industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Thine Electronics 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.
High dependence on Thine Electronics ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Thine Electronics still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Semiconductors industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Thine Electronics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Thine Electronics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Thine Electronics 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, Thine Electronics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Thine Electronics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Semiconductors sector.
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 Thine Electronics 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Thine Electronics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Thine Electronics 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
– Thine Electronics has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Semiconductors sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Thine Electronics to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Thine Electronics to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Developing new processes and practices
– Thine Electronics can develop new processes and procedures in Semiconductors 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Thine Electronics 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Thine Electronics is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Thine Electronics can utilize new technology in the field of Semiconductors industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Semiconductors industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Thine Electronics 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. Thine Electronics 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Thine Electronics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Semiconductors 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Thine Electronics are -
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. Thine Electronics 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Thine Electronics is facing in Semiconductors sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Thine Electronics may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Semiconductors sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Thine Electronics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Semiconductors industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Thine Electronics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Semiconductors 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Thine Electronics 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 Semiconductors 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 Thine Electronics.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Semiconductors industry are lowering. It can presents Thine Electronics with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Semiconductors sector.
Environmental challenges
– Thine Electronics 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. Thine Electronics can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Semiconductors industry.
Increasing wage structure of Thine Electronics
– 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 Thine Electronics.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Thine Electronics in Semiconductors industry. The Semiconductors 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.
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 Thine Electronics business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Thine Electronics 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Thine Electronics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
