SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Geniee Inc (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Geniee Inc is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing energy prices, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Geniee Inc can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Geniee Inc, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Geniee Inc
2. Improving business portfolio management of Geniee Inc
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Advertising sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Geniee Inc
Strengths of Geniee Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Geniee Inc are -
Learning organization
- Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Geniee Inc emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Geniee Inc in Advertising industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Geniee Inc
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Geniee Inc does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Geniee Inc 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Geniee Inc comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Advertising 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Geniee Inc has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Geniee Inc 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Advertising industry
– Geniee Inc is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Geniee Inc has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Advertising industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Geniee Inc have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Geniee Inc 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Geniee Inc has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Geniee Inc staying ahead in the Advertising industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Ability to lead change in Advertising
– Geniee Inc is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Advertising industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Geniee Inc in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Geniee Inc | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Geniee Inc are -
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry using digital technology.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Advertising industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry.
Lack of clear differentiation of Geniee Inc products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Geniee Inc needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Skills based hiring in Advertising industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Geniee Inc 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Geniee Inc strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Geniee Inc 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Geniee Inc is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Geniee Inc to provide better information regarding Advertising products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Geniee Inc 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Geniee Inc is one of the leading players in the Advertising industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Advertising industry in last five years.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Geniee Inc is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Advertising industry, but Geniee Inc needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Geniee Inc to focus more on services in the Advertising industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Geniee Inc, in the dynamic environment of Advertising industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Geniee Inc has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Geniee Inc has high operating costs in the Advertising industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Geniee Inc lucrative customers.
Geniee Inc Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Geniee Inc are -
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 Geniee Inc 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Geniee Inc 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Geniee Inc is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Geniee Inc can utilize new technology in the field of Advertising industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Geniee Inc can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Advertising 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Geniee Inc can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Advertising 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Geniee Inc in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Advertising industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Geniee Inc can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Geniee Inc operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Advertising sector.
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. Geniee Inc can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Geniee Inc 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Advertising industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Geniee Inc 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. Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Geniee Inc are -
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Geniee Inc may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Advertising 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Geniee Inc 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Advertising industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry are lowering. It can presents Geniee Inc with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Advertising sector.
Regulatory challenges
– Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Geniee Inc has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Advertising industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Geniee Inc needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Advertising 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 wage structure of Geniee Inc
– 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 Geniee Inc.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Geniee Inc is facing in Advertising sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Geniee Inc 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 Advertising industry.
Environmental challenges
– Geniee Inc 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. Geniee Inc can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Advertising industry.
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. Geniee Inc 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.
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 Geniee Inc business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Geniee Inc Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc 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 Geniee Inc needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.