SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Toyo Wharf Warehouse (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Toyo Wharf Warehouse is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, technology disruption, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs,
increasing energy prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Toyo Wharf Warehouse
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Toyo Wharf Warehouse can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Toyo Wharf Warehouse, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Toyo Wharf Warehouse
2. Improving business portfolio management of Toyo Wharf Warehouse
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Toyo Wharf Warehouse
Strengths of Toyo Wharf Warehouse | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Toyo Wharf Warehouse are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse is one of the most innovative firm in Misc. Transportation sector.
Diverse revenue streams
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse is present in almost all the verticals within the Misc. Transportation industry. This has provided Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Toyo Wharf Warehouse in Misc. Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Toyo Wharf Warehouse has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Toyo Wharf Warehouse in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Toyo Wharf Warehouse has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Toyo Wharf Warehouse to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Toyo Wharf Warehouse
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Toyo Wharf Warehouse does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Toyo Wharf Warehouse to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Misc. Transportation industry
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Toyo Wharf Warehouse to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Misc. Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Toyo Wharf Warehouse to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Misc. Transportation 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
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse is one of the leading players in the Misc. Transportation 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Toyo Wharf Warehouse are -
Need for greater diversity
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 dependence on Toyo Wharf Warehouse ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Toyo Wharf Warehouse still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Misc. Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Toyo Wharf Warehouse has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Toyo Wharf Warehouse, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Transportation industry, Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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, Toyo Wharf Warehouse has high operating costs in the Misc. Transportation industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Toyo Wharf Warehouse lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Toyo Wharf Warehouse is just above the Misc. Transportation 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.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Toyo Wharf Warehouse has some of the most successful models in the Misc. Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Toyo Wharf Warehouse should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Toyo Wharf Warehouse has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Transportation industry over the last five years. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Toyo Wharf Warehouse products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Toyo Wharf Warehouse needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Toyo Wharf Warehouse Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Toyo Wharf Warehouse are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Toyo Wharf Warehouse to increase its market reach. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Misc. Transportation industry.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Toyo Wharf Warehouse can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Toyo Wharf Warehouse operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Transportation sector.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Toyo Wharf Warehouse is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Toyo Wharf Warehouse can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Toyo Wharf Warehouse in the Misc. Transportation industry. Now Toyo Wharf Warehouse can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Misc. Transportation industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Toyo Wharf Warehouse can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Misc. Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Toyo Wharf Warehouse to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Toyo Wharf Warehouse to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Threats Toyo Wharf Warehouse External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Toyo Wharf Warehouse are -
Environmental challenges
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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. Toyo Wharf Warehouse can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Misc. Transportation 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.
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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse in the Misc. Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse.
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. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Toyo Wharf Warehouse with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Transportation sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Misc. Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Toyo Wharf Warehouse needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Misc. Transportation 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Misc. Transportation industry regulations.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Toyo Wharf Warehouse is facing in Misc. Transportation 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, Toyo Wharf Warehouse may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Transportation sector.
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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Misc. Transportation industry and other sectors.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Toyo Wharf Warehouse Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.