SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sanko Marketing Foods (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sanko Marketing Foods is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – geopolitical disruptions, increasing commodity prices, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , 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,
wage bills are increasing, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Sanko Marketing Foods
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sanko Marketing Foods can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sanko Marketing Foods, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sanko Marketing Foods
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sanko Marketing Foods
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Restaurants sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sanko Marketing Foods
Strengths of Sanko Marketing Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sanko Marketing Foods are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Sanko Marketing Foods is present in almost all the verticals within the Restaurants industry. This has provided Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
High brand equity
– Sanko Marketing Foods has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Sanko Marketing Foods to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Training and development
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sanko Marketing Foods has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sanko Marketing Foods staying ahead in the Restaurants industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Sanko Marketing Foods in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Sanko Marketing Foods has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sanko Marketing Foods to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Restaurants industry
– Sanko Marketing Foods has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sanko Marketing Foods to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Restaurants industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sanko Marketing Foods to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Learning organization
- Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sanko Marketing Foods emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Sanko Marketing Foods is one of the most innovative firm in Restaurants sector.
Strong track record of project management in the Restaurants industry
– Sanko Marketing Foods is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Ability to lead change in Restaurants
– Sanko Marketing Foods is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Restaurants industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sanko Marketing Foods 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
– Sanko Marketing Foods is one of the leading players in the Restaurants 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.
Weaknesses of Sanko Marketing Foods | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sanko Marketing Foods are -
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Sanko Marketing Foods has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Restaurants industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Skills based hiring in Restaurants industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Restaurants industry, but Sanko Marketing Foods needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sanko Marketing Foods to focus more on services in the Restaurants industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Restaurants industry using digital technology.
Need for greater diversity
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sanko Marketing Foods is one of the leading players in the Restaurants industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Restaurants industry in last five years.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sanko Marketing Foods, in the dynamic environment of Restaurants industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sanko Marketing Foods has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Sanko Marketing Foods has some of the most successful models in the Restaurants industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Sanko Marketing Foods should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sanko Marketing Foods, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Restaurants 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Sanko Marketing Foods has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Restaurants industry over the last five years. Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Restaurants industry, Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Sanko Marketing Foods Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sanko Marketing Foods are -
Loyalty marketing
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Restaurants industry.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sanko Marketing Foods is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sanko Marketing Foods can utilize new technology in the field of Restaurants industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Sanko Marketing Foods can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Restaurants 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Sanko Marketing Foods can develop new processes and procedures in Restaurants 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sanko Marketing Foods has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Restaurants industry. This can help Sanko Marketing Foods to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sanko Marketing Foods products in the Restaurants industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sanko Marketing Foods can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Sanko Marketing Foods to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Restaurants industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Sanko Marketing Foods can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sanko Marketing Foods can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Restaurants 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Restaurants industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Sanko Marketing Foods in the Restaurants industry. Now Sanko Marketing Foods can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sanko Marketing Foods can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sanko Marketing Foods operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Restaurants sector.
Threats Sanko Marketing Foods External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sanko Marketing Foods are -
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.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Sanko Marketing Foods may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Restaurants sector.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Restaurants industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods is facing in Restaurants sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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. Sanko Marketing Foods 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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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, Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods prominent markets.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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. Sanko Marketing Foods can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Restaurants industry.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Sanko Marketing Foods has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Restaurants industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Sanko Marketing Foods needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Restaurants 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 Sanko Marketing Foods.
Regulatory challenges
– Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Restaurants industry regulations.
Increasing wage structure of Sanko Marketing Foods
– 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 Sanko Marketing Foods.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Sanko Marketing Foods Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods 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 Sanko Marketing Foods needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.