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 – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is backlash against globalization, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, geopolitical disruptions, 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 -
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.
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.
Learning organization
- Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Thine Electronics emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Semiconductors industry
– Thine Electronics has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Thine Electronics to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Semiconductors industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Thine Electronics to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Semiconductors industry
– Thine Electronics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Organizational Resilience of Thine Electronics
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Thine Electronics does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
High brand equity
– Thine Electronics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Thine Electronics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
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.
Innovation driven organization
– Thine Electronics is one of the most innovative firm in Semiconductors sector.
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.
Weaknesses of Thine Electronics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Thine Electronics are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Thine Electronics needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Semiconductors industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Thine Electronics can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Thine Electronics is planning to shift buying processes online.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Thine Electronics, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Semiconductors 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.
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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Semiconductors industry, Thine Electronics 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Thine Electronics has high operating costs in the Semiconductors industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Thine Electronics lucrative customers.
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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Thine Electronics is just above the Semiconductors 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.
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.
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.
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.
Thine Electronics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Thine Electronics are -
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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Thine Electronics 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 Semiconductors industry.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Semiconductors industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Thine Electronics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Thine Electronics to increase its market reach. Thine Electronics 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.
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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Thine Electronics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Semiconductors industry. This can help Thine Electronics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Thine Electronics products in the Semiconductors industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Thine Electronics 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Thine Electronics in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Semiconductors industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Thine Electronics 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 Thine Electronics prominent markets.
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.
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.
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.
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. Thine Electronics needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Semiconductors industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Thine Electronics 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 Semiconductors industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Semiconductors industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Thine Electronics can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
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.
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.