Japan Foundation Engineering (1914) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Construction Services
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Japan Foundation Engineering (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Japan Foundation Engineering is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
increasing energy prices, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Japan Foundation Engineering
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Japan Foundation Engineering can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Japan Foundation Engineering, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Japan Foundation Engineering
2. Improving business portfolio management of Japan Foundation Engineering
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Construction Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Japan Foundation Engineering
Strengths of Japan Foundation Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Japan Foundation Engineering are -
Ability to lead change in Construction Services
– Japan Foundation Engineering is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Construction Services industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Japan Foundation Engineering in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Organizational Resilience of Japan Foundation Engineering
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Japan Foundation Engineering does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Digital Transformation in Construction Services industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Japan Foundation Engineering digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Japan Foundation Engineering has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Learning organization
- Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Japan Foundation Engineering emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
High brand equity
– Japan Foundation Engineering has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Japan Foundation Engineering to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Japan Foundation Engineering in the Capital Goods sector have low bargaining power. Japan Foundation Engineering has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Japan Foundation Engineering to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Strong track record of project management in the Construction Services industry
– Japan Foundation Engineering is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Construction Services industry
– Japan Foundation Engineering has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Japan Foundation Engineering to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Construction Services industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Japan Foundation Engineering to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Japan Foundation Engineering comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Construction Services 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Japan Foundation Engineering is present in almost all the verticals within the Construction Services industry. This has provided Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Weaknesses of Japan Foundation Engineering | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Japan Foundation Engineering are -
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Japan Foundation Engineering is one of the leading players in the Construction Services industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Construction Services industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Japan Foundation Engineering has high operating costs in the Construction Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Japan Foundation Engineering lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Construction Services industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Construction Services industry.
High dependence on Japan Foundation Engineering ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Japan Foundation Engineering still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Construction Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Japan Foundation Engineering has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Japan Foundation Engineering 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 harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Japan Foundation Engineering is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Japan Foundation Engineering to provide better information regarding Construction Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Skills based hiring in Construction Services industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Japan Foundation Engineering, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Construction Services 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Japan Foundation Engineering has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Construction Services industry over the last five years. Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Japan Foundation Engineering needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Japan Foundation Engineering supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Japan Foundation Engineering is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Japan Foundation Engineering vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Japan Foundation Engineering Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Japan Foundation Engineering are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Japan Foundation Engineering can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Construction Services industry.
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 Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Japan Foundation Engineering can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Construction Services 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Construction Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Japan Foundation Engineering can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Japan Foundation Engineering in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Construction Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
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. Japan Foundation Engineering can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Construction Services industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Japan Foundation Engineering in the Construction Services industry. Now Japan Foundation Engineering can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Japan Foundation Engineering can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Japan Foundation Engineering operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Construction Services sector.
Threats Japan Foundation Engineering External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Japan Foundation Engineering are -
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 Japan Foundation Engineering.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Japan Foundation Engineering has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Construction Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Japan Foundation Engineering needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Construction Services 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.
Regulatory challenges
– Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Construction Services 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 Japan Foundation Engineering in the Construction Services 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. Japan Foundation Engineering 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Japan Foundation Engineering may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Construction Services 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.
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 Japan Foundation Engineering 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. Japan Foundation Engineering needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Construction Services industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Construction Services industry are lowering. It can presents Japan Foundation Engineering with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Construction Services sector.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Japan Foundation Engineering is facing in Construction Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Environmental challenges
– Japan Foundation Engineering 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. Japan Foundation Engineering can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Construction Services industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Japan Foundation Engineering Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering 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 Japan Foundation Engineering needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
