SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Ohmura Shigyo (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Ohmura Shigyo is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, technology disruption, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%,
increasing energy prices, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Ohmura Shigyo can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Ohmura Shigyo, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Ohmura Shigyo
2. Improving business portfolio management of Ohmura Shigyo
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Containers & Packaging sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Ohmura Shigyo
Strengths of Ohmura Shigyo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Ohmura Shigyo are -
Learning organization
- Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Ohmura Shigyo emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Ohmura Shigyo has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Ohmura Shigyo comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Digital Transformation in Containers & Packaging industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Ohmura Shigyo digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Strong track record of project management in the Containers & Packaging industry
– Ohmura Shigyo is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Ohmura Shigyo is present in almost all the verticals within the Containers & Packaging industry. This has provided Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Training and development
– Ohmura Shigyo has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials 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.
High brand equity
– Ohmura Shigyo has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Ohmura Shigyo to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Ohmura Shigyo is one of the leading players in the Containers & Packaging 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
– Ohmura Shigyo has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Containers & Packaging industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Ohmura Shigyo have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Ohmura Shigyo has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Ohmura Shigyo staying ahead in the Containers & Packaging industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Ohmura Shigyo in the Basic Materials sector have low bargaining power. Ohmura Shigyo has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Ohmura Shigyo to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Weaknesses of Ohmura Shigyo | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Ohmura Shigyo are -
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Containers & Packaging industry, Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Ohmura Shigyo still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Containers & Packaging industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Ohmura Shigyo has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Lack of clear differentiation of Ohmura Shigyo products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Ohmura Shigyo needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Ohmura Shigyo has some of the most successful models in the Containers & Packaging industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Ohmura Shigyo should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Ohmura Shigyo has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Containers & Packaging industry over the last five years. Ohmura Shigyo 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.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Ohmura Shigyo has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Containers & Packaging industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Need for greater diversity
– Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Ohmura Shigyo is just above the Containers & Packaging 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Ohmura Shigyo has high operating costs in the Containers & Packaging industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Ohmura Shigyo lucrative customers.
High bargaining power of channel partners in Containers & Packaging industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Ohmura Shigyo 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 Containers & Packaging industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Japan, Ohmura Shigyo needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Ohmura Shigyo Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Ohmura Shigyo are -
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Ohmura Shigyo is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Ohmura Shigyo can utilize new technology in the field of Containers & Packaging industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Ohmura Shigyo 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
– Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Containers & Packaging industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Ohmura Shigyo 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. Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Ohmura Shigyo in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Containers & Packaging industry, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Containers & Packaging industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Ohmura Shigyo can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Ohmura Shigyo has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Containers & Packaging industry. This can help Ohmura Shigyo to build a more holistic ecosystem for Ohmura Shigyo products in the Containers & Packaging industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Developing new processes and practices
– Ohmura Shigyo can develop new processes and procedures in Containers & Packaging 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.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Containers & Packaging industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Ohmura Shigyo in the Containers & Packaging industry. Now Ohmura Shigyo can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo 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
– Ohmura Shigyo can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Containers & Packaging 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.
Threats Ohmura Shigyo External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Ohmura Shigyo has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Containers & Packaging industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Ohmura Shigyo needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Containers & Packaging 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.
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 Ohmura Shigyo business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
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. Ohmura Shigyo 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.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Ohmura Shigyo is facing in Containers & Packaging sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Ohmura Shigyo may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Containers & Packaging 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 Ohmura Shigyo in the Containers & Packaging sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo prominent markets.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Containers & Packaging industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Ohmura Shigyo can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Ohmura Shigyo 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 Containers & Packaging industry and other sectors.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Containers & Packaging industry are lowering. It can presents Ohmura Shigyo with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Containers & Packaging sector.
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.
Environmental challenges
– Ohmura Shigyo 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. Ohmura Shigyo can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Containers & Packaging industry.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Ohmura Shigyo Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo 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 Ohmura Shigyo needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
