SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Miyoshi Oil Fat (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Miyoshi Oil Fat is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, technology disruption,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing commodity prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Miyoshi Oil Fat can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Miyoshi Oil Fat, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Miyoshi Oil Fat
2. Improving business portfolio management of Miyoshi Oil Fat
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 Miyoshi Oil Fat
Strengths of Miyoshi Oil Fat | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Miyoshi Oil Fat are -
Learning organization
- Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Miyoshi Oil Fat emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Miyoshi Oil Fat in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Miyoshi Oil Fat is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.
Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Miyoshi Oil Fat digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Miyoshi Oil Fat 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
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry
– Miyoshi Oil Fat is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Miyoshi Oil Fat in the Consumer/Non-Cyclical sector have low bargaining power. Miyoshi Oil Fat has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Miyoshi Oil Fat to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Food Processing industry
– Miyoshi Oil Fat has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Miyoshi Oil Fat to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Food Processing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Miyoshi Oil Fat to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Miyoshi Oil Fat has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Training and development
– Miyoshi Oil Fat has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Miyoshi Oil Fat has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Weaknesses of Miyoshi Oil Fat | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Miyoshi Oil Fat are -
Products dominated business model
– Even though Miyoshi Oil Fat has some of the most successful models in the Food Processing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Miyoshi Oil Fat should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High dependence on Miyoshi Oil Fat ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Miyoshi Oil Fat has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Miyoshi Oil Fat needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Miyoshi Oil Fat can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Miyoshi Oil Fat is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Miyoshi Oil Fat, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Miyoshi Oil Fat has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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, Miyoshi Oil Fat needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Skills based hiring in Food Processing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Food Processing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Food Processing industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Miyoshi Oil Fat products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Miyoshi Oil Fat needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Miyoshi Oil Fat Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Miyoshi Oil Fat are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
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. Miyoshi Oil Fat can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Miyoshi Oil Fat can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Miyoshi Oil Fat operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Food Processing sector.
Manufacturing automation
– Miyoshi Oil Fat can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Food Processing 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Miyoshi Oil Fat in the Food Processing industry. Now Miyoshi Oil Fat can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Miyoshi Oil Fat can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
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. Miyoshi Oil Fat 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. Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Miyoshi Oil Fat is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Miyoshi Oil Fat can utilize new technology in the field of Food Processing 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 Food Processing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Miyoshi Oil Fat can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Miyoshi Oil Fat External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Miyoshi Oil Fat 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. Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
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 Miyoshi Oil Fat business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
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 Miyoshi Oil Fat in the Food Processing 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. Miyoshi Oil Fat needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat prominent markets.
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. Miyoshi Oil Fat can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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. Miyoshi Oil Fat can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Food Processing 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Miyoshi Oil Fat 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Miyoshi Oil Fat Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat 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 Miyoshi Oil Fat needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
