SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sansei Landic (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sansei Landic is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings,
increasing household debt because of falling income levels, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sansei Landic can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sansei Landic, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sansei Landic
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sansei Landic
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Real Estate Operations sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sansei Landic
Strengths of Sansei Landic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sansei Landic are -
Strong track record of project management in the Real Estate Operations industry
– Sansei Landic is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sansei Landic in Real Estate Operations industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Digital Transformation in Real Estate Operations industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Sansei Landic digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sansei Landic does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High brand equity
– Sansei Landic has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sansei Landic to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Real Estate Operations industry
– Sansei Landic has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sansei Landic to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sansei Landic to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Sansei Landic 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.
Ability to lead change in Real Estate Operations
– Sansei Landic is one of the leading players in the Real Estate Operations industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Real Estate Operations industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sansei Landic in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Learning organization
- Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sansei Landic emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sansei Landic has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sansei Landic 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.
Training and development
– Sansei Landic 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.
Innovation driven organization
– Sansei Landic is one of the most innovative firm in Real Estate Operations sector.
Weaknesses of Sansei Landic | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sansei Landic are -
Employees’ less understanding of Sansei Landic strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sansei Landic 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.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Sansei Landic needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Real Estate Operations industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Sansei Landic can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Sansei Landic is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sansei Landic 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 Real Estate Operations industry using digital technology.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Sansei Landic needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Sansei Landic has high operating costs in the Real Estate Operations industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Sansei Landic lucrative customers.
Skills based hiring in Real Estate Operations industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sansei Landic 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.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sansei Landic is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Real Estate Operations industry, but Sansei Landic needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sansei Landic to focus more on services in the Real Estate Operations industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sansei Landic has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Real Estate Operations industry over the last five years. Sansei Landic 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Sansei Landic products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Sansei Landic needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
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 Sansei Landic supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Sansei Landic is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Sansei Landic vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sansei Landic, in the dynamic environment of Real Estate Operations industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sansei Landic has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Sansei Landic Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sansei Landic are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sansei Landic 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Sansei Landic 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sansei Landic can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Real Estate Operations 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
– Sansei Landic can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Real Estate Operations 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 Sansei Landic to increase its market reach. Sansei Landic 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Real Estate Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sansei Landic 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. Sansei Landic 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Sansei Landic in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Real Estate Operations industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Real Estate Operations industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sansei Landic in the Real Estate Operations industry. Now Sansei Landic can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sansei Landic 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sansei Landic has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Real Estate Operations sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sansei Landic to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sansei Landic to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sansei Landic can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sansei Landic operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Real Estate Operations sector.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Real Estate Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sansei Landic can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Threats Sansei Landic External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sansei Landic are -
Regulatory challenges
– Sansei Landic 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 Real Estate Operations industry regulations.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Sansei Landic 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 Real Estate Operations industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Sansei Landic needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Sansei Landic can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Real Estate Operations industry.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sansei Landic 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 Real Estate Operations industry.
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 Sansei Landic in the Real Estate Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sansei Landic 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.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic prominent markets.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sansei Landic has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Real Estate Operations industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sansei Landic needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Real Estate Operations 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.
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 Sansei Landic.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Real Estate Operations industry are lowering. It can presents Sansei Landic with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Real Estate Operations sector.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sansei Landic may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Real Estate Operations sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sansei Landic in Real Estate Operations industry. The Real Estate Operations 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.
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 Sansei Landic business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sansei Landic Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic 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 Sansei Landic needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.