SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing energy prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo
2. Improving business portfolio management of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Electronic Instr. & Controls sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo
Strengths of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Digital Transformation in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Innovation driven organization
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is one of the most innovative firm in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Ability to lead change in Electronic Instr. & Controls
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is one of the leading players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo staying ahead in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is just above the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry using digital technology.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has some of the most successful models in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is planning to shift buying processes online.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo, in the dynamic environment of Electronic Instr. & Controls industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, but Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to focus more on services in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Need for greater diversity
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can develop new processes and procedures in Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to increase its market reach. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. This can help Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo to build a more holistic ecosystem for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo products in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Electronic Instr. & Controls 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. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in the Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. Now Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry and other sectors.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Electronic Instr. & Controls industry.
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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo prominent markets.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Electronic Instr. & Controls industry are lowering. It can presents Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry. The Electronic Instr. & Controls 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.
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.
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Electronic Instr. & Controls sector.
Increasing wage structure of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo
– 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo is facing in Electronic Instr. & Controls sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Electronic Instr. & Controls industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo in the Electronic Instr. & Controls sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo 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 Teikoku Tsushin Kogyo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.