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 – challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, technology disruption, increasing commodity prices, there is backlash against globalization,
wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
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.
Learning organization
- Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Toyo Wharf Warehouse emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Toyo Wharf Warehouse staying ahead in the Misc. Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Toyo Wharf Warehouse comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Transportation 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.
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.
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.
Training and development
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
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 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Misc. Transportation industry
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Toyo Wharf Warehouse digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
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 -
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.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Toyo Wharf Warehouse supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Toyo Wharf Warehouse is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Toyo Wharf Warehouse vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
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.
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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Toyo Wharf Warehouse, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Transportation 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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 Misc. Transportation industry using digital technology.
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.
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.
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.
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 -
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. Toyo Wharf Warehouse can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
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.
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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse can develop new processes and procedures in Misc. Transportation 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Toyo Wharf Warehouse has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Misc. Transportation industry. This can help Toyo Wharf Warehouse to build a more holistic ecosystem for Toyo Wharf Warehouse products in the Misc. Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Toyo Wharf Warehouse in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Transportation industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Misc. Transportation 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 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 -
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.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Toyo Wharf Warehouse can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Toyo Wharf Warehouse in Misc. Transportation industry. The Misc. Transportation 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.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Toyo Wharf Warehouse 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 Toyo Wharf Warehouse business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Toyo Wharf Warehouse needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Misc. Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
