Hakuyosha Co Ltd (9731) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Personal Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Hakuyosha Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Hakuyosha Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Hakuyosha Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Hakuyosha Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Hakuyosha Co Ltd operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Hakuyosha Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Hakuyosha Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Hakuyosha Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Personal Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Hakuyosha Co Ltd
Strengths of Hakuyosha Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Hakuyosha Co Ltd are -
Digital Transformation in Personal Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Hakuyosha Co Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Hakuyosha Co Ltd has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Learning organization
- Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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 Hakuyosha Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Hakuyosha Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Personal Services industry
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Hakuyosha Co Ltd to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Personal Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Hakuyosha Co Ltd to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Personal Services 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Hakuyosha Co Ltd are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
High brand equity
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Hakuyosha Co Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Services industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Hakuyosha Co Ltd in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Hakuyosha Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Hakuyosha Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Hakuyosha Co Ltd in Personal Services industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Hakuyosha Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Personal Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Personal Services industry. This has provided Hakuyosha Co Ltd a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Ability to lead change in Personal Services
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Personal Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Personal Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Hakuyosha Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Hakuyosha Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Hakuyosha Co Ltd are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Personal Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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 Personal Services industry.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Hakuyosha Co Ltd is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Personal Services industry, but Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Hakuyosha Co Ltd to focus more on services in the Personal Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Personal Services industry, Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Hakuyosha Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Need for greater diversity
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
High dependence on Hakuyosha Co Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Hakuyosha Co Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Personal Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Hakuyosha Co Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Hakuyosha Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Personal Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Hakuyosha Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Personal Services 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, Hakuyosha Co Ltd has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Personal Services industry using digital technology.
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 Hakuyosha Co Ltd supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Hakuyosha Co Ltd is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Hakuyosha Co Ltd vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Hakuyosha Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Hakuyosha Co Ltd are -
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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 Personal Services industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Hakuyosha Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Hakuyosha Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Personal Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Personal Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Hakuyosha Co Ltd in the Personal Services industry. Now Hakuyosha Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Hakuyosha Co Ltd in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Personal Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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 Hakuyosha Co Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Personal Services industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Hakuyosha Co Ltd can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Hakuyosha Co Ltd can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Loyalty marketing
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Personal Services 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. Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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, Hakuyosha Co Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Hakuyosha Co Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Personal Services sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Hakuyosha Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Hakuyosha Co Ltd will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Threats Hakuyosha Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Hakuyosha Co Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Hakuyosha Co Ltd
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Hakuyosha Co Ltd.
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. Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Personal Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Personal Services industry.
Environmental challenges
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Hakuyosha Co Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Personal Services industry.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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.
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 Hakuyosha Co Ltd.
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. Hakuyosha Co Ltd 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Hakuyosha Co Ltd may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Personal Services sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Hakuyosha Co Ltd in Personal Services industry. The Personal Services 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Hakuyosha Co Ltd demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Personal Services industry and other sectors.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Personal Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Hakuyosha Co Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Personal Services industry are lowering. It can presents Hakuyosha Co Ltd with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Personal Services sector.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Hakuyosha Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Personal Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Personal Services 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Hakuyosha Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Hakuyosha Co Ltd is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Hakuyosha Co Ltd is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Hakuyosha Co Ltd to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Hakuyosha Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
