Honyaku Center (2483) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Honyaku Center (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Honyaku Center is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing household debt because of falling income levels, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, etc

---

---

---

---

Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Honyaku Center

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Honyaku Center can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Honyaku Center, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Honyaku Center
2. Improving business portfolio management of Honyaku Center
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Business Services sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Honyaku Center

---

Strengths of Honyaku Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Honyaku Center are -

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Honyaku Center in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Honyaku Center has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Honyaku Center to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Strong track record of project management in the Business Services industry

– Honyaku Center is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.

Training and development

– Honyaku Center has one of the best training and development program in Services 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.

Organizational Resilience of Honyaku Center

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Honyaku Center does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Honyaku Center 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.

Digital Transformation in Business Services industry

- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Honyaku Center digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Honyaku Center 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.

High brand equity

– Honyaku Center has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Honyaku Center to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.

Innovation driven organization

– Honyaku Center is one of the most innovative firm in Business Services sector.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Honyaku Center has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Business Services industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Honyaku Center have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Honyaku Center has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Honyaku Center staying ahead in the Business Services industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Honyaku Center 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Honyaku Center is present in almost all the verticals within the Business Services industry. This has provided Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Honyaku Center are -

Lack of clear differentiation of Honyaku Center products

– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Honyaku Center needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.

Need for greater diversity

– Honyaku Center 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Honyaku Center needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Skills based hiring in Business Services industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Honyaku Center 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, Honyaku Center is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Honyaku Center to provide better information regarding Business Services products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

High bargaining power of channel partners in Business Services industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Honyaku Center 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 Business Services industry.

High dependence on Honyaku Center ‘s star products

– The top 2 products and services of Honyaku Center still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Business Services industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Honyaku Center has relatively successful track record of launching new products.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

Honyaku Center has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Business Services industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Honyaku Center is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Business Services industry, but Honyaku Center needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Honyaku Center to focus more on services in the Business Services industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Honyaku Center has high operating costs in the Business Services industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Honyaku Center lucrative customers.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Business Services industry, Honyaku Center 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.

---

Honyaku Center Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Honyaku Center are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Honyaku Center 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Business Services industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Honyaku Center in the Business Services industry. Now Honyaku Center can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Developing new processes and practices

– Honyaku Center can develop new processes and procedures in Business Services 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.

Buying journey improvements

– Honyaku Center can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Business 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.

Loyalty marketing

– Honyaku Center 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.

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. Honyaku Center can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Honyaku Center 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 Business Services industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Honyaku Center in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Business Services industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.

Manufacturing automation

– Honyaku Center can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Business Services 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Business Services industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Honyaku Center can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Honyaku Center is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Honyaku Center can utilize new technology in the field of Business Services industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.

---

Threats Honyaku Center External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Honyaku Center are -

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Honyaku Center 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 Business Services industry.

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Business Services industry are lowering. It can presents Honyaku Center with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Business Services sector.

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.

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. Honyaku Center will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.

Regulatory challenges

– Honyaku Center 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 Business Services 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.

Increasing wage structure of Honyaku Center

– 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 Honyaku Center.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Honyaku Center may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Business Services sector.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Honyaku Center has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Business Services industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Honyaku Center needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Business 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Business Services industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Honyaku Center can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

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 Honyaku Center business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Honyaku Center is facing in Business Services sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Honyaku Center in Business Services industry. The Business Services 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.

---

Weighted SWOT Analysis of Honyaku Center Template, Example

Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center 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 Honyaku Center needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

--- ---