Shingakukai Co Ltd (9760) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Schools
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Shingakukai Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Shingakukai Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, wage bills are increasing, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, increasing transportation and logistics costs, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Shingakukai Co Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Shingakukai Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Shingakukai Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Shingakukai Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Shingakukai Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Schools sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Shingakukai Co Ltd
Strengths of Shingakukai Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Shingakukai Co Ltd are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Shingakukai Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Schools industry. This has provided Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Digital Transformation in Schools industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Shingakukai Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Schools industry
– Shingakukai Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Shingakukai Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Schools industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Shingakukai Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Shingakukai Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Schools 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Shingakukai Co Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Schools sector.
Organizational Resilience of Shingakukai Co Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Shingakukai Co Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Shingakukai Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Shingakukai Co Ltd in Schools industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 brand equity
– Shingakukai Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Shingakukai Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Shingakukai Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Schools 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.
Weaknesses of Shingakukai Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Shingakukai Co Ltd are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Shingakukai Co Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Shingakukai Co Ltd to provide better information regarding Schools products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Shingakukai Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Schools 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 to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Shingakukai Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Schools industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Schools industry in last five years.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Shingakukai Co Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Schools industry over the last five years. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Shingakukai Co Ltd is just above the Schools 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Shingakukai Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Schools industry, but Shingakukai Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Shingakukai Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Schools industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Shingakukai Co Ltd, in the dynamic environment of Schools industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Schools 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Shingakukai Co Ltd needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Schools industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Shingakukai Co Ltd can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Shingakukai Co Ltd is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Schools industry using digital technology.
Shingakukai Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Shingakukai Co Ltd are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Shingakukai Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Schools sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Shingakukai Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Shingakukai Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Shingakukai Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Schools industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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. Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Shingakukai Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Schools 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
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Shingakukai Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Shingakukai Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Schools sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Shingakukai Co Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Developing new processes and practices
– Shingakukai Co Ltd can develop new processes and procedures in Schools 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
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Shingakukai Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Shingakukai Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Schools industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Schools industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Shingakukai Co Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Manufacturing automation
– Shingakukai Co Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Schools 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.
Threats Shingakukai Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Shingakukai Co Ltd are -
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. Shingakukai Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Schools 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Shingakukai Co Ltd
– 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Schools industry.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Schools industry and other sectors.
Regulatory challenges
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Schools industry regulations.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Schools industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Shingakukai Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Shingakukai Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Schools sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Shingakukai Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Schools industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Shingakukai Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Schools 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Shingakukai Co Ltd is facing in Schools sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Shingakukai Co Ltd 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. Shingakukai Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Schools industry.
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 Shingakukai Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd 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 Shingakukai Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.