Wood One Co Ltd (7898) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Wood One Co Ltd (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Wood One Co Ltd is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing transportation and logistics costs,
banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Wood One Co Ltd can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Wood One Co Ltd, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Wood One 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 Wood One Co Ltd can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Wood One Co Ltd
2. Improving business portfolio management of Wood One Co Ltd
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Wood One Co Ltd
Strengths of Wood One Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Wood One Co Ltd are -
Ability to lead change in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures
– Wood One Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Wood One Co Ltd in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Wood One Co Ltd in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Wood One Co Ltd has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Wood One Co Ltd to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Wood One Co Ltd has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Wood One Co Ltd staying ahead in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Wood One Co 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– Wood One Co 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Wood One Co Ltd 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Wood One Co Ltd is one of the leading players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Wood One Co Ltd comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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
– Wood One Co Ltd is present in almost all the verticals within the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This has provided Wood One 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.
Learning organization
- Wood One 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 Wood One Co Ltd is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Wood One Co Ltd emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Wood One 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Wood One Co Ltd has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Wood One Co 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.
Weaknesses of Wood One Co Ltd | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Wood One Co Ltd are -
Employees’ less understanding of Wood One Co Ltd strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Wood One Co 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Wood One 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Wood One Co Ltd has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Wood One Co 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry over the last five years. Wood One Co 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.
High dependence on Wood One Co Ltd ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Wood One Co Ltd still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Wood One Co Ltd has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Wood One Co Ltd products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Wood One Co Ltd needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, Wood One 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Wood One Co Ltd, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Wood One Co 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.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Wood One 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Wood One Co Ltd needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Wood One Co Ltd Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Wood One Co Ltd are -
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Wood One 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Wood One Co Ltd is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Wood One Co Ltd can utilize new technology in the field of Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Wood One Co Ltd to increase its market reach. Wood One 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Wood One Co Ltd can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
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. Wood One Co Ltd can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Wood One 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Wood One Co Ltd in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. Now Wood One Co Ltd can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Buying journey improvements
– Wood One Co Ltd can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Wood One 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Wood One Co Ltd has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Wood One Co Ltd to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Wood One Co Ltd to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Wood One Co Ltd has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This can help Wood One Co Ltd to build a more holistic ecosystem for Wood One Co Ltd products in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Wood One Co Ltd 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.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Wood One Co Ltd to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Wood One Co Ltd External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Wood One Co Ltd are -
Increasing wage structure of Wood One 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 Wood One Co Ltd.
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 Wood One Co Ltd in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Wood One Co Ltd in Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. The Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Wood One Co Ltd has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Wood One Co Ltd needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Wood One Co 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 Wood One Co Ltd prominent markets.
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.
Regulatory challenges
– Wood One Co Ltd 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry regulations.
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 Wood One Co Ltd 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. Wood One Co Ltd needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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 Wood One 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. Wood One 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, Wood One 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 Constr. - Supplies & Fixtures sector.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Wood One Co Ltd Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Wood One 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 Wood One 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 Wood One 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 Wood One 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 Wood One Co Ltd needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
