SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Impress Holdings (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Impress Holdings is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – wage bills are increasing, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Impress Holdings can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Impress Holdings, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Impress 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 Impress Holdings can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Impress Holdings
2. Improving business portfolio management of Impress Holdings
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 Impress Holdings
Strengths of Impress Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Impress Holdings are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Impress Holdings has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Impress 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Printing & Publishing industry
– Impress 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.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Printing & Publishing industry
– Impress Holdings has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Impress Holdings to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Printing & Publishing industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Impress Holdings to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Impress Holdings in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Impress Holdings has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Impress Holdings to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Diverse revenue streams
– Impress Holdings is present in almost all the verticals within the Printing & Publishing industry. This has provided Impress 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.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Impress Holdings 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 Impress Holdings have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Organizational Resilience of Impress Holdings
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Impress Holdings does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Impress Holdings 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.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Impress Holdings in Printing & Publishing industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Impress Holdings 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.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Impress Holdings 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.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Impress Holdings has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Impress Holdings staying ahead in the Printing & Publishing industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Weaknesses of Impress Holdings | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Impress Holdings are -
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Impress Holdings is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Impress Holdings to provide better information regarding Printing & Publishing products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Impress Holdings is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Printing & Publishing industry, but Impress Holdings needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Impress Holdings to focus more on services in the Printing & Publishing industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Impress Holdings 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.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Impress Holdings needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Printing & Publishing industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Impress 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 Printing & Publishing industry.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative at Impress Holdings, in the dynamic environment of Printing & Publishing industry it has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Impress Holdings has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Impress Holdings 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 Impress Holdings lucrative customers.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Impress Holdings 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.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Impress Holdings has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Printing & Publishing industry over the last five years. Impress Holdings 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.
Skills based hiring in Printing & Publishing industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Impress 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Impress Holdings 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.
Impress Holdings Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Impress Holdings are -
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Impress Holdings 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.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Impress Holdings to increase its market reach. Impress 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Printing & Publishing industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Impress Holdings can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Impress 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 Impress Holdings to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
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. Impress Holdings can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Impress Holdings 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.
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 Impress Holdings 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.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Impress Holdings has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Printing & Publishing industry. This can help Impress Holdings to build a more holistic ecosystem for Impress Holdings products in the Printing & Publishing industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Impress Holdings 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Impress Holdings can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Impress Holdings operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Printing & Publishing sector.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Impress Holdings can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Loyalty marketing
– Impress Holdings 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.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Impress Holdings 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.
Threats Impress Holdings External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Impress Holdings are -
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Impress Holdings 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 Impress Holdings prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Impress Holdings 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.
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. Impress Holdings 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 Impress Holdings business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Printing & Publishing industry are lowering. It can presents Impress Holdings with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Printing & Publishing sector.
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. Impress Holdings needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Printing & Publishing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Impress 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.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Impress Holdings 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 Printing & Publishing industry and other sectors.
Environmental challenges
– Impress 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. Impress Holdings can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Printing & Publishing 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. Impress 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.
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 Impress Holdings.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Impress Holdings is facing in Printing & Publishing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Impress Holdings in the Printing & Publishing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Impress Holdings Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Impress 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 Impress 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 Impress 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 Impress 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 Impress Holdings needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.