Fukushima Bank Ltd (8562) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Regional Banks
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Fukushima Bank Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Fukushima Bank Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , geopolitical disruptions, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
technology disruption, wage bills are increasing, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Fukushima Bank Ltd
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Fukushima Bank Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Fukushima Bank Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Fukushima Bank Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Fukushima Bank Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Regional Banks sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Fukushima Bank Ltd
Strengths of Fukushima Bank Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Fukushima Bank Ltd are -
Innovation driven organization
– Fukushima Bank Ltd is one of the most innovative firm in Regional Banks sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Regional Banks industry
– Fukushima Bank Ltd is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Fukushima Bank Ltd 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.
Training and development
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has one of the best training and development program in Financial 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.
High brand equity
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Fukushima Bank Ltd to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Fukushima Bank Ltd in Regional Banks industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Regional Banks industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Fukushima Bank Ltd have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Fukushima Bank Ltd
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Fukushima Bank Ltd does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Fukushima Bank Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Regional Banks industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Fukushima Bank Ltd digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Fukushima Bank 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Fukushima Bank Ltd staying ahead in the Regional Banks industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Fukushima Bank Ltd 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 Regional Banks 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.
Weaknesses of Fukushima Bank Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Fukushima Bank Ltd are -
Skills based hiring in Regional Banks industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Fukushima Bank Ltd 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Fukushima Bank Ltd is one of the leading players in the Regional Banks industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Regional Banks industry in last five years.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Regional Banks industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Fukushima Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Fukushima Bank Ltd has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Regional Banks industry over the last five years. Fukushima Bank Ltd 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Fukushima Bank 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Fukushima Bank Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Fukushima Bank Ltd 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Fukushima Bank Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Regional Banks 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Fukushima Bank Ltd is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Fukushima Bank Ltd to provide better information regarding Regional Banks products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Fukushima Bank Ltd is just above the Regional Banks 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.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Fukushima Bank Ltd has high operating costs in the Regional Banks industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Fukushima Bank Ltd lucrative customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Fukushima Bank Ltd 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.
Fukushima Bank Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Fukushima Bank Ltd are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Fukushima Bank Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Regional Banks sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Fukushima Bank Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Fukushima Bank Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Fukushima Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Fukushima Bank 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Fukushima Bank 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Fukushima Bank Ltd to increase its market reach. Fukushima Bank 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Fukushima Bank Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Regional Banks 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Fukushima Bank Ltd can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Fukushima Bank Ltd operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Regional Banks sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Manufacturing automation
– Fukushima Bank Ltd can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Regional Banks 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Fukushima Bank 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Fukushima Bank Ltd 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Regional Banks industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Fukushima Bank Ltd can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Regional Banks industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Fukushima Bank 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. Fukushima Bank 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.
Threats Fukushima Bank Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Fukushima Bank Ltd are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Fukushima Bank 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.
Environmental challenges
– Fukushima Bank 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. Fukushima Bank Ltd can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Regional Banks industry.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Fukushima Bank Ltd in the Regional Banks sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Fukushima Bank Ltd 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd prominent markets.
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 Fukushima Bank Ltd business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Fukushima Bank 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 Regional Banks industry.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Fukushima Bank Ltd in Regional Banks industry. The Regional Banks 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. Fukushima Bank 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Fukushima Bank Ltd is facing in Regional Banks sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, 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. Fukushima Bank Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Regional Banks industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Regional Banks industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Fukushima Bank Ltd can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Fukushima Bank Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank 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 Fukushima Bank Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
