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 – increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, technology disruption,
wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, 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 -
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.
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.
Organizational Resilience of Nippon Antenna
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Nippon Antenna does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Nippon Antenna comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Communications Equipment 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Nippon Antenna 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Communications Equipment industry
– Nippon Antenna has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Nippon Antenna to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Communications Equipment industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Nippon Antenna to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Nippon Antenna is one of the most innovative firm in Communications Equipment sector.
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 -
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.
Skills based hiring in Communications Equipment industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Nippon Antenna 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Nippon Antenna needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Nippon Antenna has some of the most successful models in the Communications Equipment industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Nippon Antenna should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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.
Need for greater diversity
– Nippon Antenna 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 bargaining power of channel partners in Communications Equipment industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Nippon Antenna 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 Communications Equipment industry.
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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Nippon Antenna has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Communications Equipment industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
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.
Nippon Antenna Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Nippon Antenna are -
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.
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.
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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Nippon Antenna 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.
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.
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.
Manufacturing automation
– Nippon Antenna can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Communications Equipment 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.
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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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.
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.
Threats Nippon Antenna External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Nippon Antenna are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Communications Equipment industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Nippon Antenna can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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.
Increasing wage structure of Nippon Antenna
– 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 Nippon Antenna.
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.
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.
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.
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. Nippon Antenna needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Communications Equipment industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Nippon Antenna 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 Nippon Antenna prominent markets.
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.
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
– 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.
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.
