SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Sanoyas Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Sanoyas Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing energy prices,
geopolitical disruptions, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Sanoyas Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Sanoyas Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Sanoyas Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Sanoyas Holdings
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Water Transportation sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Sanoyas Holdings
Strengths of Sanoyas Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Sanoyas Holdings are -
Diverse revenue streams
– Sanoyas Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry
– Sanoyas Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Sanoyas Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Water Transportation industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Sanoyas Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to lead change in Water Transportation
– Sanoyas Holdings is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Water Transportation industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Sanoyas Holdings in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Sanoyas Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Learning organization
- Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Sanoyas Holdings emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Sanoyas Holdings is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation 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.
Organizational Resilience of Sanoyas Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Sanoyas Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Strong track record of project management in the Water Transportation industry
– Sanoyas Holdings is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Sanoyas Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Sanoyas Holdings staying ahead in the Water Transportation 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 Sanoyas Holdings in the Transportation sector have low bargaining power. Sanoyas Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Sanoyas Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Training and development
– Sanoyas Holdings has one of the best training and development program in Transportation 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Sanoyas Holdings in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Weaknesses of Sanoyas Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Sanoyas Holdings are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Sanoyas Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Sanoyas Holdings to provide better information regarding Water Transportation products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Sanoyas Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Sanoyas Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Sanoyas Holdings, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Water Transportation 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.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Sanoyas Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Water Transportation industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Sanoyas Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Employees’ less understanding of Sanoyas Holdings strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Sanoyas Holdings 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.
High dependence on Sanoyas Holdings ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Sanoyas Holdings still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Water Transportation industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Sanoyas Holdings has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Sanoyas Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Water Transportation industry, but Sanoyas Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Sanoyas Holdings to focus more on services in the Water Transportation industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Sanoyas Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry using digital technology.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Sanoyas Holdings is one of the leading players in the Water Transportation industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Water Transportation industry in last five years.
Sanoyas Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Sanoyas Holdings are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Sanoyas Holdings can develop new processes and procedures in Water Transportation 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.
Manufacturing automation
– Sanoyas Holdings can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Water Transportation 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.
Buying journey improvements
– Sanoyas Holdings can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Water Transportation 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.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Sanoyas Holdings has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Water Transportation sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Sanoyas Holdings to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Sanoyas Holdings to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Sanoyas Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Water Transportation industry. This can help Sanoyas Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Sanoyas Holdings products in the Water Transportation industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, 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. Sanoyas Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Sanoyas Holdings to increase its market reach. Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Sanoyas Holdings is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Sanoyas Holdings can utilize new technology in the field of Water Transportation industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Sanoyas Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Sanoyas Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Water Transportation sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Sanoyas Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Sanoyas Holdings 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. Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Threats Sanoyas Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Sanoyas Holdings are -
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Sanoyas Holdings 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.
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 Sanoyas Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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 Sanoyas Holdings.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Sanoyas Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry.
Environmental challenges
– Sanoyas Holdings 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. Sanoyas Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Water Transportation 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 Sanoyas Holdings in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
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. Sanoyas Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Water Transportation industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
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. Sanoyas Holdings 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.
Increasing wage structure of Sanoyas Holdings
– 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 Sanoyas Holdings.
Regulatory challenges
– Sanoyas Holdings 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 Water Transportation industry regulations.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Water Transportation industry are lowering. It can presents Sanoyas Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Water Transportation sector.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Sanoyas Holdings in Water Transportation industry. The Water Transportation 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.
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 Sanoyas Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings 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 Sanoyas Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.