SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Uchiyama Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Uchiyama Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, geopolitical disruptions, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic ,
increasing transportation and logistics costs, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Uchiyama Holdings
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Uchiyama Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Uchiyama Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Uchiyama Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Uchiyama Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Healthcare Facilities sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Uchiyama Holdings
Strengths of Uchiyama Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Uchiyama Holdings are -
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Uchiyama Holdings in Healthcare Facilities industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Analytics focus
– Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities industry
– Uchiyama Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Uchiyama Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Uchiyama Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Healthcare Facilities industry
– Uchiyama Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Uchiyama Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Healthcare Facilities industry. This has provided Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Training and development
– Uchiyama Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Healthcare 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Uchiyama Holdings in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Uchiyama Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Uchiyama Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Uchiyama Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Uchiyama Holdings staying ahead in the Healthcare Facilities industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Uchiyama Holdings is one of the most innovative firm in Healthcare Facilities sector.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Uchiyama Holdings is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Weaknesses of Uchiyama Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Uchiyama Holdings are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Uchiyama Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Uchiyama Holdings to provide better information regarding Healthcare Facilities products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities industry using digital technology.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Uchiyama Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Healthcare Facilities 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Uchiyama Holdings has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Healthcare Facilities industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Healthcare Facilities industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Uchiyama Holdings is one of the leading players in the Healthcare Facilities industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Healthcare Facilities industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Uchiyama Holdings needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Healthcare Facilities industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Uchiyama Holdings can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Uchiyama Holdings is planning to shift buying processes online.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Uchiyama Holdings is just above the Healthcare Facilities 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 Uchiyama Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Uchiyama Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Healthcare Facilities industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Uchiyama Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Uchiyama Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Healthcare Facilities industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Uchiyama Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Lack of clear differentiation of Uchiyama Holdings products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Uchiyama Holdings needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Uchiyama Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Uchiyama Holdings are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Uchiyama Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Healthcare Facilities sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Uchiyama Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Healthcare Facilities industry. This can help Uchiyama Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Uchiyama Holdings products in the Healthcare Facilities industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Uchiyama Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Uchiyama Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Healthcare Facilities industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Healthcare Facilities industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Uchiyama Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
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. Uchiyama Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Buying journey improvements
– Uchiyama Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Healthcare Facilities 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Uchiyama Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Healthcare Facilities 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Healthcare Facilities industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Uchiyama Holdings 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. Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Uchiyama Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Healthcare Facilities 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.
Threats Uchiyama Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Uchiyama Holdings are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Healthcare Facilities industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Uchiyama Holdings can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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.
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 Uchiyama Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities industry regulations.
Environmental challenges
– Uchiyama Holdings 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. Uchiyama Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Healthcare Facilities industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Uchiyama Holdings has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Healthcare Facilities industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Uchiyama Holdings needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Healthcare Facilities 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, Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings prominent markets.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Uchiyama Holdings is facing in Healthcare Facilities sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Uchiyama Holdings may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Healthcare Facilities sector.
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. Uchiyama Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Healthcare Facilities industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Uchiyama Holdings 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.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Uchiyama Holdings 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 Healthcare Facilities industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Uchiyama Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings 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 Uchiyama Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
