Takizawa Ham (2293) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Takizawa Ham (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Takizawa Ham is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing transportation and logistics costs, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Takizawa Ham

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Takizawa Ham can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Takizawa Ham, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Takizawa Ham 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.

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SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix

SWOT analysis of Takizawa Ham can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Takizawa Ham
2. Improving business portfolio management of Takizawa Ham
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Food Processing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Takizawa Ham

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Strengths of Takizawa Ham | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Takizawa Ham are -

Successful track record of launching new products

– Takizawa Ham has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Takizawa Ham 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.

Ability to lead change in Food Processing

– Takizawa Ham is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Food Processing industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Takizawa Ham 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

– Takizawa Ham is one of the leading players in the Food Processing 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.

High brand equity

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

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Takizawa Ham in Food Processing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Takizawa Ham comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Food Processing 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Food Processing industry

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

Digital Transformation in Food Processing industry

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

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Takizawa Ham 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.

Training and development

– Takizawa Ham has one of the best training and development program in Consumer/Non-Cyclical 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

– Takizawa Ham is one of the most innovative firm in Food Processing sector.

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Weaknesses of Takizawa Ham | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Takizawa Ham are -

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Takizawa Ham, in the dynamic environment of Food Processing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Takizawa Ham has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Takizawa Ham 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 Food Processing industry using digital technology.

High dependence on Takizawa Ham ‘s star products

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Takizawa Ham is one of the leading players in the Food Processing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Food Processing industry in last five years.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Takizawa Ham is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Takizawa Ham to provide better information regarding Food Processing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.

Aligning sales with marketing

– From the outside it seems that Takizawa Ham needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Food Processing industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Takizawa Ham can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Takizawa Ham is planning to shift buying processes online.

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Takizawa Ham 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Takizawa Ham has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Food Processing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Takizawa Ham has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Food Processing industry over the last five years. Takizawa Ham 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 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 Takizawa Ham supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Takizawa Ham is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Takizawa Ham vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Lack of clear differentiation of Takizawa Ham products

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

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Takizawa Ham Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Takizawa Ham are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Takizawa Ham 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 Takizawa Ham 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.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Food Processing industry

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Takizawa Ham can develop new processes and procedures in Food Processing 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.

Reforming the budgeting process

- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Takizawa Ham can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Food Processing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Takizawa Ham 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. Takizawa Ham 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.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Buying journey improvements

– Takizawa Ham can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Food Processing 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.

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. Takizawa Ham can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Loyalty marketing

– Takizawa Ham 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 Takizawa Ham 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 Food Processing industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

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Threats Takizawa Ham External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Takizawa Ham are -

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 Takizawa Ham in the Food Processing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Takizawa Ham 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 Food Processing industry.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Takizawa Ham in Food Processing industry. The Food Processing 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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Food Processing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Takizawa Ham 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 Takizawa Ham business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Takizawa Ham 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 Takizawa Ham prominent markets.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Takizawa Ham 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.

High level of anxiety and lack of motivation

– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Takizawa Ham needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Food Processing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Learning curve for new practices

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

Regulatory challenges

– Takizawa Ham 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 Food Processing industry regulations.

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. Takizawa Ham 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.

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 Takizawa Ham.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Takizawa Ham Template, Example

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

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