SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Nippon Antenna (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Nippon Antenna is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices,
challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Nippon Antenna can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Nippon Antenna, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Nippon Antenna
2. Improving business portfolio management of Nippon Antenna
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Communications Equipment sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Nippon Antenna
Strengths of Nippon Antenna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Nippon Antenna are -
Learning organization
- Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Nippon Antenna emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Nippon Antenna is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Nippon Antenna has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Communications Equipment industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Nippon Antenna have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Diverse revenue streams
– Nippon Antenna is present in almost all the verticals within the Communications Equipment industry. This has provided Nippon Antenna 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Nippon Antenna has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Nippon Antenna 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
– Nippon Antenna has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Nippon Antenna has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Nippon Antenna staying ahead in the Communications Equipment industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Nippon Antenna 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Communications Equipment industry
– Nippon Antenna is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Nippon Antenna in Communications Equipment industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Nippon Antenna in the Technology sector have low bargaining power. Nippon Antenna has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Nippon Antenna to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to lead change in Communications Equipment
– Nippon Antenna is one of the leading players in the Communications Equipment industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Communications Equipment industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Nippon Antenna in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Weaknesses of Nippon Antenna | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Nippon Antenna are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Nippon Antenna, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Communications Equipment 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Nippon Antenna products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Nippon Antenna needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Nippon Antenna strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Nippon Antenna 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 decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Nippon Antenna has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Communications Equipment industry over the last five years. Nippon Antenna 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.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna, in the dynamic environment of Communications Equipment industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Nippon Antenna 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, Nippon Antenna has high operating costs in the Communications Equipment industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Nippon Antenna lucrative customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Nippon Antenna needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Communications Equipment industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Nippon Antenna can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Nippon Antenna is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Nippon Antenna is just above the Communications Equipment 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 dependence on Nippon Antenna ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Nippon Antenna still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Communications Equipment industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Nippon Antenna has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Nippon Antenna is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Communications Equipment industry, but Nippon Antenna needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Nippon Antenna to focus more on services in the Communications Equipment industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Nippon Antenna Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nippon Antenna are -
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Nippon Antenna can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Nippon Antenna operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Communications Equipment sector.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Communications Equipment industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Nippon Antenna in the Communications Equipment industry. Now Nippon Antenna can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
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 Nippon Antenna 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.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Nippon Antenna 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. Nippon Antenna can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Buying journey improvements
– Nippon Antenna can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Communications Equipment 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Nippon Antenna 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Nippon Antenna 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Nippon Antenna 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Nippon Antenna can develop new processes and procedures in Communications Equipment 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 Nippon Antenna has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Communications Equipment industry. This can help Nippon Antenna to build a more holistic ecosystem for Nippon Antenna products in the Communications Equipment 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 Nippon Antenna in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Communications Equipment industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Nippon Antenna has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Communications Equipment sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Nippon Antenna to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Nippon Antenna to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Threats Nippon Antenna External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nippon Antenna are -
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. Nippon Antenna 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.
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 Nippon Antenna in the Communications Equipment sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Environmental challenges
– Nippon Antenna 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. Nippon Antenna can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Communications Equipment industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Nippon Antenna is facing in Communications Equipment sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Nippon Antenna in Communications Equipment industry. The Communications Equipment 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.
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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Nippon Antenna 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 Communications Equipment industry.
Regulatory challenges
– Nippon Antenna 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 Communications Equipment industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Nippon Antenna has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Communications Equipment industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Nippon Antenna needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Communications Equipment 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.
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 Nippon Antenna.
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 Nippon Antenna business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Nippon Antenna 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Communications Equipment industry are lowering. It can presents Nippon Antenna with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Communications Equipment sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Nippon Antenna Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.