Asahipen (4623) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Chemical Manufacturing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Asahipen (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Asahipen is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Asahipen can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Asahipen, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Asahipen 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 Asahipen can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Asahipen
2. Improving business portfolio management of Asahipen
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Chemical Manufacturing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Asahipen
Strengths of Asahipen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Asahipen are -
Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Asahipen digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Asahipen 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
– Asahipen has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Asahipen to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Asahipen has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Chemical Manufacturing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Asahipen have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Asahipen has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Asahipen staying ahead in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– Asahipen has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Asahipen to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Asahipen to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Asahipen is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Asahipen comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Asahipen 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Asahipen in Chemical Manufacturing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Analytics focus
– Asahipen 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 Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Learning organization
- Asahipen 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 Asahipen is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Asahipen emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Asahipen has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Asahipen has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Weaknesses of Asahipen | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Asahipen are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Asahipen 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Asahipen has some of the most successful models in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Asahipen should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
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 Asahipen supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Asahipen is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Asahipen vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Asahipen 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.
High dependence on Asahipen ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Asahipen still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Chemical Manufacturing industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Asahipen has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Asahipen, in the dynamic environment of Chemical Manufacturing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Asahipen has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Asahipen has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry over the last five years. Asahipen 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Asahipen is one of the leading players in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Chemical Manufacturing industry in last five years.
Employees’ less understanding of Asahipen strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Asahipen 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.
Skills based hiring in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Asahipen 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Asahipen needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Chemical Manufacturing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Asahipen can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Asahipen is planning to shift buying processes online.
Asahipen Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Asahipen are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Asahipen 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 Asahipen to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Asahipen 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Asahipen 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 Asahipen to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
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. Asahipen can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Loyalty marketing
– Asahipen 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Chemical Manufacturing industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Asahipen in the Chemical Manufacturing industry. Now Asahipen can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Asahipen in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Chemical Manufacturing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Asahipen can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Asahipen has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Chemical Manufacturing sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Asahipen to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Asahipen to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Manufacturing automation
– Asahipen can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Asahipen to increase its market reach. Asahipen 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Asahipen can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Asahipen operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Chemical Manufacturing sector.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Asahipen 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.
Threats Asahipen External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Asahipen are -
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Chemical Manufacturing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Asahipen can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Asahipen is facing in Chemical Manufacturing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Asahipen in the Chemical Manufacturing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Asahipen 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 Chemical Manufacturing industry.
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.
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 Asahipen.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Asahipen can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Asahipen prominent markets.
Increasing wage structure of Asahipen
– 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 Asahipen.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Asahipen 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.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Chemical Manufacturing industry are lowering. It can presents Asahipen with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Chemical Manufacturing 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. Asahipen 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, Asahipen may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Chemical Manufacturing 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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Asahipen Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Asahipen 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 Asahipen 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 Asahipen 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 Asahipen 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 Asahipen needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
