SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Takamisawa Cybernetics (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Takamisawa Cybernetics 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, technology disruption, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google,
wage bills are increasing, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Takamisawa Cybernetics
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Takamisawa Cybernetics can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Takamisawa Cybernetics, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Takamisawa Cybernetics
2. Improving business portfolio management of Takamisawa Cybernetics
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Scientific & Technical Instr. sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Takamisawa Cybernetics
Strengths of Takamisawa Cybernetics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Takamisawa Cybernetics are -
Innovation driven organization
– Takamisawa Cybernetics is one of the most innovative firm in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Takamisawa Cybernetics has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Takamisawa Cybernetics has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Takamisawa Cybernetics staying ahead in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Takamisawa Cybernetics comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
High brand equity
– Takamisawa Cybernetics has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Takamisawa Cybernetics to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Takamisawa Cybernetics has one of the best training and development program in Technology 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.
Ability to lead change in Scientific & Technical Instr.
– Takamisawa Cybernetics is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Takamisawa Cybernetics in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Strong track record of project management in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– Takamisawa Cybernetics is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
Organizational Resilience of Takamisawa Cybernetics
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Takamisawa Cybernetics does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Analytics focus
– Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Takamisawa Cybernetics are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
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 Takamisawa Cybernetics supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Takamisawa Cybernetics is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Takamisawa Cybernetics vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Takamisawa Cybernetics needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Takamisawa Cybernetics, in the dynamic environment of Scientific & Technical Instr. industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Takamisawa Cybernetics has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Takamisawa Cybernetics is one of the leading players in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Takamisawa Cybernetics is just above the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Takamisawa Cybernetics has high operating costs in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Takamisawa Cybernetics lucrative customers.
Employees’ less understanding of Takamisawa Cybernetics strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry using digital technology.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Takamisawa Cybernetics has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry over the last five years. Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
High dependence on Takamisawa Cybernetics ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Takamisawa Cybernetics still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Takamisawa Cybernetics has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Takamisawa Cybernetics Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Takamisawa Cybernetics are -
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Takamisawa Cybernetics can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Takamisawa Cybernetics to increase its market reach. Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Takamisawa Cybernetics in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. Now Takamisawa Cybernetics can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Takamisawa Cybernetics can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Loyalty marketing
– Takamisawa Cybernetics 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
– Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
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. Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Takamisawa Cybernetics has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. This can help Takamisawa Cybernetics to build a more holistic ecosystem for Takamisawa Cybernetics products in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Takamisawa Cybernetics can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Takamisawa Cybernetics can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Takamisawa Cybernetics operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Threats Takamisawa Cybernetics External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Takamisawa Cybernetics are -
Regulatory challenges
– Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry regulations.
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 Takamisawa Cybernetics 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.
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 Takamisawa Cybernetics in the Scientific & Technical Instr. sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics prominent markets.
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 Takamisawa Cybernetics.
Increasing wage structure of Takamisawa Cybernetics
– 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Scientific & Technical Instr. industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Takamisawa Cybernetics may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Scientific & Technical Instr. sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Scientific & Technical Instr. industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics is facing in Scientific & Technical Instr. sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Takamisawa Cybernetics has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Scientific & Technical Instr. industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Takamisawa Cybernetics needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Scientific & Technical Instr. 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.
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.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Takamisawa Cybernetics Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics 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 Takamisawa Cybernetics needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.