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Tohbu Network (9036) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Tohbu Network (Japan)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Tohbu Network is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , increasing commodity prices, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is backlash against globalization, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Tohbu Network


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




Strengths of Tohbu Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Tohbu Network are -

High switching costs

– The high switching costs that Tohbu Network 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.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

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

Ability to lead change in Trucking

– Tohbu Network is one of the leading players in the Trucking industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Trucking industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Tohbu Network in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Diverse revenue streams

– Tohbu Network is present in almost all the verticals within the Trucking industry. This has provided Tohbu Network 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.

Ability to recruit top talent

– Tohbu Network is one of the leading players in the Trucking 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.

Innovation driven organization

– Tohbu Network is one of the most innovative firm in Trucking sector.

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Tohbu Network 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.

Learning organization

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Training and development

– Tohbu Network 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.

Strong track record of project management in the Trucking industry

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






Weaknesses of Tohbu Network | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Tohbu Network are -

Aligning sales with marketing

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

Lack of clear differentiation of Tohbu Network products

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

Products dominated business model

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

Low market penetration in new markets

– Outside its home market of Japan, Tohbu Network needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.

Skills based hiring in Trucking industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Tohbu Network 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.

High cash cycle compare to competitors

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

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Trucking industry, Tohbu Network 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.

Slow to harness new channels of communication

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

High bargaining power of channel partners in Trucking industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Tohbu Network 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 Trucking industry.

High dependence on existing supply chain

– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Tohbu Network supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes, Tohbu Network is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Tohbu Network vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.

Slow decision making process

– As mentioned earlier in the report, Tohbu Network has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Trucking industry over the last five years. Tohbu Network 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.




Tohbu Network Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Tohbu Network are -

Leveraging digital technologies

– Tohbu Network 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.

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Tohbu Network has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Trucking sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Tohbu Network to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Tohbu Network to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Finding new ways to collaborate

– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Trucking industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Tohbu Network can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.

Low interest rates

– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Tohbu Network can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Tohbu Network to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.

Building a culture of innovation

– managers at Tohbu Network 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 Trucking industry.

Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains

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

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Redefining models of collaboration and team work

– As explained in the weaknesses section, Tohbu Network is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Tohbu Network can utilize new technology in the field of Trucking 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, Tohbu Network can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Tohbu Network operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Trucking sector.

Loyalty marketing

– Tohbu Network 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.

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. Tohbu Network can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.




Threats Tohbu Network External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Tohbu Network are -

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 Tohbu Network.

Consumer confidence and its impact on Tohbu Network demand

– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Trucking industry and other sectors.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Tohbu Network 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 Trucking industry.

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. Tohbu Network 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.

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Tohbu Network has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Trucking industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Tohbu Network needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Trucking 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.

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. Tohbu Network needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Trucking industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.

Regulatory challenges

– Tohbu Network 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 Trucking industry regulations.

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Tohbu Network in Trucking industry. The Trucking 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.

Shortening product life cycle

– it is one of the major threat that Tohbu Network is facing in Trucking sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.

High dependence on third party suppliers

– Tohbu Network 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 wage structure of Tohbu Network

– 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 Tohbu Network.

Learning curve for new practices

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

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 Tohbu Network in the Trucking sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Tohbu Network Template, Example


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



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