SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Marufuji Sheet Piling (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Marufuji Sheet Piling is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing energy prices, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, wage bills are increasing, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy,
supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Marufuji Sheet Piling
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Marufuji Sheet Piling can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Marufuji Sheet Piling, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Marufuji Sheet Piling
2. Improving business portfolio management of Marufuji Sheet Piling
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Misc. Fabricated Products sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Marufuji Sheet Piling
Strengths of Marufuji Sheet Piling | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Marufuji Sheet Piling are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Marufuji Sheet Piling has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Marufuji Sheet Piling staying ahead in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Analytics focus
– Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Marufuji Sheet Piling in Misc. Fabricated Products industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Marufuji Sheet Piling is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Training and development
– Marufuji Sheet Piling has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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
- Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Marufuji Sheet Piling emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Marufuji Sheet Piling has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Marufuji Sheet Piling comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Digital Transformation in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Marufuji Sheet Piling digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Organizational Resilience of Marufuji Sheet Piling
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Marufuji Sheet Piling does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Weaknesses of Marufuji Sheet Piling | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Marufuji Sheet Piling are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Marufuji Sheet Piling is one of the leading players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry in last five years.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Marufuji Sheet Piling needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Marufuji Sheet Piling can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Marufuji Sheet Piling is planning to shift buying processes online.
Skills based hiring in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Marufuji Sheet Piling is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Marufuji Sheet Piling to provide better information regarding Misc. Fabricated Products products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Marufuji Sheet Piling has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling, in the dynamic environment of Misc. Fabricated Products industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Marufuji Sheet Piling has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Marufuji Sheet Piling, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Marufuji Sheet Piling is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, but Marufuji Sheet Piling needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Marufuji Sheet Piling to focus more on services in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Marufuji Sheet Piling has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry over the last five years. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Marufuji Sheet Piling Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Marufuji Sheet Piling are -
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Marufuji Sheet Piling to increase its market reach. Marufuji Sheet Piling will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry.
Loyalty marketing
– Marufuji Sheet Piling 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
– Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Marufuji Sheet Piling in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Marufuji Sheet Piling can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Marufuji Sheet Piling operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Buying journey improvements
– Marufuji Sheet Piling can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Marufuji Sheet Piling can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Marufuji Sheet Piling is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Marufuji Sheet Piling can utilize new technology in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Misc. Fabricated Products industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Marufuji Sheet Piling in the Misc. Fabricated Products industry. Now Marufuji Sheet Piling can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Threats Marufuji Sheet Piling External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Marufuji Sheet Piling are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Marufuji Sheet Piling demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Misc. Fabricated Products industry and other sectors.
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 Marufuji Sheet Piling in the Misc. Fabricated Products sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Marufuji Sheet Piling in Misc. Fabricated Products industry. The Misc. Fabricated Products 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Marufuji Sheet Piling is facing in Misc. Fabricated Products sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Regulatory challenges
– Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Misc. Fabricated Products industry regulations.
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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Misc. Fabricated Products industry are lowering. It can presents Marufuji Sheet Piling with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Marufuji Sheet Piling may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Misc. Fabricated Products sector.
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 Marufuji Sheet Piling business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Misc. Fabricated Products industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Marufuji Sheet Piling can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
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. Marufuji Sheet Piling 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Marufuji Sheet Piling Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling 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 Marufuji Sheet Piling needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.