Arbeit-Times (2341) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Arbeit-Times (Japan)

Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Arbeit-Times is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, wage bills are increasing, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, etc

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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Arbeit-Times

SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Arbeit-Times can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Arbeit-Times, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Arbeit-Times
2. Improving business portfolio management of Arbeit-Times
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Printing & Publishing sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Arbeit-Times

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Strengths of Arbeit-Times | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Arbeit-Times are -

Learning organization

- Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Arbeit-Times emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

– Suppliers of Arbeit-Times in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Arbeit-Times has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Arbeit-Times to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.

Ability to lead change in Printing & Publishing

– Arbeit-Times is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Printing & Publishing industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Arbeit-Times 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

– Arbeit-Times is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing 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.

Highly skilled collaborators

– Arbeit-Times has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Printing & Publishing industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Arbeit-Times have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.

Diverse revenue streams

– Arbeit-Times is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Arbeit-Times 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.

Digital Transformation in Printing & Publishing industry

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

Operational resilience

– The operational resilience strategy of Arbeit-Times comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Printing & Publishing 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Arbeit-Times is one of the most innovative firm in Printing & Publishing sector.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Arbeit-Times 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing & Publishing industry

– Arbeit-Times has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Arbeit-Times to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Arbeit-Times to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Arbeit-Times in Printing & Publishing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

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Weaknesses of Arbeit-Times | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Arbeit-Times are -

High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Arbeit-Times 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 Printing & Publishing industry.

No frontier risks strategy

– From the 10K / annual statement of Arbeit-Times, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Printing & Publishing 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 to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Arbeit-Times is one of the leading players in the Printing & Publishing industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry in last five years.

Products dominated business model

– Even though Arbeit-Times has some of the most successful models in the Printing & Publishing industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Arbeit-Times should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Arbeit-Times is just above the Printing & Publishing 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 cash cycle compare to competitors

Arbeit-Times has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Printing & Publishing industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.

Capital Spending Reduction

– Even during the low interest decade, Arbeit-Times 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 Printing & Publishing industry using digital technology.

Increasing silos among functional specialists

– The organizational structure of Arbeit-Times is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing & Publishing industry, but Arbeit-Times needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Arbeit-Times to focus more on services in the Printing & Publishing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.

Ability to respond to the competition

– As the decision making is very deliberative at Arbeit-Times, in the dynamic environment of Printing & Publishing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Arbeit-Times has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.

Lack of clear differentiation of Arbeit-Times products

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

High operating costs

– Compare to the competitors, Arbeit-Times has high operating costs in the Printing & Publishing industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Arbeit-Times lucrative customers.

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Arbeit-Times Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The opportunities of Arbeit-Times are -

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Arbeit-Times 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.

Lowering marketing communication costs

– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Arbeit-Times in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Printing & Publishing industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.

Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Printing & Publishing industry

– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Arbeit-Times in the Printing & Publishing industry. Now Arbeit-Times can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.

Loyalty marketing

– Arbeit-Times 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.

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

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

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 Arbeit-Times 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.

Increase in government spending

– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Arbeit-Times can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Arbeit-Times operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Arbeit-Times 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.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.

Buying journey improvements

– Arbeit-Times can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Printing & Publishing 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. Arbeit-Times can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.

Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19

– consumer behavior has changed in the Printing & Publishing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Arbeit-Times 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. Arbeit-Times 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.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Arbeit-Times 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 Printing & Publishing industry.

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Threats Arbeit-Times External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The threats of Arbeit-Times are -

Barriers of entry lowering

– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Arbeit-Times with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.

Environmental challenges

– Arbeit-Times 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. Arbeit-Times can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry.

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.

Easy access to finance

– Easy access to finance in Printing & Publishing industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times is facing in Printing & Publishing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times prominent markets.

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. Arbeit-Times 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.

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 Arbeit-Times 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 Arbeit-Times.

Learning curve for new practices

– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Arbeit-Times may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Printing & Publishing sector.

Regulatory challenges

– Arbeit-Times 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 Printing & Publishing industry regulations.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Arbeit-Times 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.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Arbeit-Times in Printing & Publishing industry. The Printing & Publishing 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.

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Weighted SWOT Analysis of Arbeit-Times Template, Example

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

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