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Kuribayashi Steamship (9171) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources

Introduction to SWOT Analysis

SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Kuribayashi Steamship (Japan)


Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Kuribayashi Steamship is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, increasing energy prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, etc



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Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Kuribayashi Steamship


SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Kuribayashi Steamship can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Kuribayashi Steamship, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Kuribayashi Steamship can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Kuribayashi Steamship
2. Improving business portfolio management of Kuribayashi Steamship
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 Kuribayashi Steamship




Strengths of Kuribayashi Steamship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The strengths of Kuribayashi Steamship are -

Cross disciplinary teams

– Horizontal connected teams at the Kuribayashi Steamship 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

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Organizational Resilience of Kuribayashi Steamship

– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Kuribayashi Steamship does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.

Effective Research and Development (R&D)

– Kuribayashi Steamship has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Sustainable margins compare to other players in Water Transportation industry

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

High brand equity

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

Ability to recruit top talent

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Diverse revenue streams

– Kuribayashi Steamship is present in almost all the verticals within the Water Transportation industry. This has provided Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Superior customer experience

– The customer experience strategy of Kuribayashi Steamship in Water Transportation industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.

Low bargaining power of suppliers

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

Highly skilled collaborators

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

Learning organization

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






Weaknesses of Kuribayashi Steamship | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis

The weaknesses of Kuribayashi Steamship are -

High bargaining power of channel partners in Water Transportation industry

– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Compensation and incentives

– The revenue per employee of Kuribayashi Steamship is just above the Water Transportation 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.

Skills based hiring in Water Transportation industry

– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Low market penetration in new markets

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

Need for greater diversity

– Kuribayashi Steamship has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.

Workers concerns about automation

– As automation is fast increasing in the Water Transportation industry, Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Lack of clear differentiation of Kuribayashi Steamship products

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

Slow to strategic competitive environment developments

– As Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Ability to respond to the competition

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

Interest costs

– Compare to the competition, Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Slow decision making process

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




Kuribayashi Steamship Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The opportunities of Kuribayashi Steamship are -

Using analytics as competitive advantage

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Kuribayashi Steamship to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Kuribayashi Steamship to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.

Loyalty marketing

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Water Transportation industry.

Lowering marketing communication costs

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

Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities

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

Buying journey improvements

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Better consumer reach

– The expansion of the 5G network will help Kuribayashi Steamship to increase its market reach. Kuribayashi Steamship 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, Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Kuribayashi Steamship 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, Kuribayashi Steamship is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Learning at scale

– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Finding new ways to collaborate

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

Developing new processes and practices

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Leveraging digital technologies

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.




Threats Kuribayashi Steamship External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis


The threats of Kuribayashi Steamship are -

Trade war between China and United States

– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Increasing wage structure of Kuribayashi Steamship

– 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 Kuribayashi Steamship.

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 Kuribayashi Steamship in the Water Transportation sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.

Learning curve for new practices

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

Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution

– Kuribayashi Steamship has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Water Transportation industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Kuribayashi Steamship needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Water Transportation 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.

Regulatory challenges

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

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 Water Transportation industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Kuribayashi Steamship can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.

Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins

– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Kuribayashi Steamship 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 Kuribayashi Steamship 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. Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Stagnating economy with rate increase

– Kuribayashi Steamship 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.

Barriers of entry lowering

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

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 Kuribayashi Steamship.




Weighted SWOT Analysis of Kuribayashi Steamship Template, Example


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



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