Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, geopolitical disruptions, wage bills are increasing,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha
Strengths of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha are -
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Water Transportation industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is one of the most innovative firm in Water Transportation sector.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha staying ahead in the Water Transportation industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Water Transportation 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 Water Transportation industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha are -
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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 dependence on Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has some of the most successful models in the Water Transportation industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Employees’ less understanding of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Need for greater diversity
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha are -
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Water Transportation industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha in the Water Transportation industry. Now Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Loyalty marketing
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to build a more holistic ecosystem for Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha products in the Water Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha is facing in Water Transportation sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry.
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. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Regulatory challenges
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Water Transportation sector.
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. Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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.
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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing wage structure of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha
– 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha.
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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha 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 Kawasaki Kinkai Kisen Kaisha needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
