SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Morishita Jintan (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Morishita Jintan 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%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Morishita Jintan can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Morishita Jintan, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Morishita Jintan
2. Improving business portfolio management of Morishita Jintan
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Biotechnology & Drugs sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Morishita Jintan
Strengths of Morishita Jintan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Morishita Jintan are -
Digital Transformation in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Morishita Jintan digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Morishita Jintan has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Morishita Jintan is one of the leading players in the Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Morishita Jintan is present in almost all the verticals within the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This has provided Morishita Jintan 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Morishita Jintan in the Healthcare sector have low bargaining power. Morishita Jintan has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Morishita Jintan to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Morishita Jintan 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Morishita Jintan has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Morishita Jintan to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Morishita Jintan to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Strong track record of project management in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– Morishita Jintan is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Innovation driven organization
– Morishita Jintan is one of the most innovative firm in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Morishita Jintan has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Morishita Jintan have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Morishita Jintan 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.
Learning organization
- Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Morishita Jintan emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Morishita Jintan has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Morishita Jintan are -
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Morishita Jintan has high operating costs in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Morishita Jintan lucrative customers.
Need for greater diversity
– Morishita Jintan 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.
Employees’ less understanding of Morishita Jintan strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Morishita Jintan 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Morishita Jintan is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but Morishita Jintan needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Morishita Jintan to focus more on services in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Lack of clear differentiation of Morishita Jintan products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Morishita Jintan needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Morishita Jintan, in the dynamic environment of Biotechnology & Drugs industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Morishita Jintan has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Morishita Jintan has some of the most successful models in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Morishita Jintan should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Morishita Jintan has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Biotechnology & Drugs 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 dependence on Morishita Jintan ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Morishita Jintan still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Biotechnology & Drugs industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Morishita Jintan has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Morishita Jintan is just above the Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry, Morishita Jintan 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.
Morishita Jintan Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Morishita Jintan are -
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Morishita Jintan 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Biotechnology & Drugs industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Morishita Jintan in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. Now Morishita Jintan can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Morishita Jintan 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Morishita Jintan can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Biotechnology & Drugs 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 Morishita Jintan 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Morishita Jintan can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Morishita Jintan operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Developing new processes and practices
– Morishita Jintan can develop new processes and procedures in Biotechnology & Drugs 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Biotechnology & Drugs industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Morishita Jintan can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Morishita Jintan 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Morishita Jintan has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Biotechnology & Drugs sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Morishita Jintan to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Morishita Jintan to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Morishita Jintan 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Morishita Jintan 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Morishita Jintan 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. Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Morishita Jintan are -
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 Morishita Jintan 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. Morishita Jintan needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Biotechnology & Drugs industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Biotechnology & Drugs industry are lowering. It can presents Morishita Jintan with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Biotechnology & Drugs industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Morishita Jintan can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Morishita Jintan 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Morishita Jintan 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 Biotechnology & Drugs industry regulations.
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 Morishita Jintan in the Biotechnology & Drugs sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Morishita Jintan 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.
Increasing wage structure of Morishita Jintan
– 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 Morishita Jintan.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Morishita Jintan may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Biotechnology & Drugs sector.
Environmental challenges
– Morishita Jintan 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. Morishita Jintan can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Biotechnology & Drugs industry.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan prominent markets.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Morishita Jintan Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan 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 Morishita Jintan needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
