SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ogura Clutch (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ogura Clutch is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, there is backlash against globalization, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ogura Clutch can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ogura Clutch, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ogura Clutch
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ogura Clutch
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Auto & Truck Parts sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ogura Clutch
Strengths of Ogura Clutch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ogura Clutch are -
Strong track record of project management in the Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Ogura Clutch 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry
– Ogura Clutch has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Ogura Clutch to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Ogura Clutch to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Ogura Clutch has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Auto & Truck Parts industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ogura Clutch have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Auto & Truck Parts
– Ogura Clutch is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in Japan but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Ogura Clutch in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Ogura Clutch in Auto & Truck Parts industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Innovation driven organization
– Ogura Clutch is one of the most innovative firm in Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Training and development
– Ogura Clutch has one of the best training and development program in Consumer Cyclical 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.
Learning organization
- Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ogura Clutch emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Ogura Clutch 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.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ogura Clutch is present in almost all the verticals within the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This has provided Ogura Clutch 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.
Analytics focus
– Ogura Clutch is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. The technology infrastructure of Japan is also helping it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ogura Clutch comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Weaknesses of Ogura Clutch | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ogura Clutch are -
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ogura Clutch is just above the Auto & Truck Parts 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.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Ogura Clutch, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ogura Clutch has some of the most successful models in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ogura Clutch should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Ogura Clutch is one of the leading players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Auto & Truck Parts industry in last five years.
Need for greater diversity
– Ogura Clutch 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry, Ogura Clutch 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.
High dependence on Ogura Clutch ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ogura Clutch still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Auto & Truck Parts industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ogura Clutch has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ogura Clutch products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ogura Clutch needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Ogura Clutch needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Auto & Truck Parts industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Ogura Clutch can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Ogura Clutch is planning to shift buying processes online.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ogura Clutch has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Auto & Truck Parts industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Ogura Clutch 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.
Ogura Clutch Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ogura Clutch are -
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Ogura Clutch 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.
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. Ogura Clutch 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ogura Clutch 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. Ogura Clutch 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.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ogura Clutch can develop new processes and procedures in Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ogura Clutch is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ogura Clutch can utilize new technology in the field of Auto & Truck Parts industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Loyalty marketing
– Ogura Clutch 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.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Auto & Truck Parts industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ogura Clutch can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ogura Clutch can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ogura Clutch in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Auto & Truck Parts industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Manufacturing automation
– Ogura Clutch can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Auto & Truck Parts 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ogura Clutch 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.
Threats Ogura Clutch External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ogura Clutch are -
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Ogura Clutch in Auto & Truck Parts industry. The Auto & Truck Parts 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.
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. Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch
– 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 Ogura Clutch.
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 Ogura Clutch in the Auto & Truck Parts sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ogura Clutch is facing in Auto & Truck Parts sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry are lowering. It can presents Ogura Clutch with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Auto & Truck Parts sector.
Environmental challenges
– Ogura Clutch 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. Ogura Clutch can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Auto & Truck Parts industry.
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. Ogura Clutch needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Auto & Truck Parts industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ogura Clutch 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 Auto & Truck Parts industry and other sectors.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ogura Clutch Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch 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 Ogura Clutch needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.