Jason (3080) SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / MBA Resources
Retail (Grocery)
Strategy / MBA Resources
Introduction to SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jason (Japan)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jason is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, geopolitical disruptions, cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, technology disruption, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion,
customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jason can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jason, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jason 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 Jason can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jason
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jason
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Japan
4. Making a Retail (Grocery) sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jason
Strengths of Jason | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jason are -
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy of Jason comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Jason in the Services sector have low bargaining power. Jason has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Jason to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Organizational Resilience of Jason
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jason does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Jason is one of the leading players in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Learning organization
- Jason 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 Jason is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jason emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Training and development
– Jason 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.
Analytics focus
– Jason 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 Retail (Grocery) 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.
Digital Transformation in Retail (Grocery) industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jason digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jason 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.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Jason 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.
High brand equity
– Jason has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Jason to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jason has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jason staying ahead in the Retail (Grocery) industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Innovation driven organization
– Jason is one of the most innovative firm in Retail (Grocery) sector.
Weaknesses of Jason | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jason are -
High bargaining power of channel partners in Retail (Grocery) industry
– because of the regulatory requirements in Japan, Jason 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Jason has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the Retail (Grocery) industry over the last five years. Jason 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 operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, Jason has high operating costs in the Retail (Grocery) industry. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Jason lucrative customers.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Jason has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the Retail (Grocery) industry using digital technology.
High dependence on Jason ‘s star products
– The top 2 products and services of Jason still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in Retail (Grocery) industry has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Jason has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Skills based hiring in Retail (Grocery) industry
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Jason 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.
Lack of clear differentiation of Jason products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Jason needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jason is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Retail (Grocery) industry, but Jason needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jason to focus more on services in the Retail (Grocery) industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jason is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jason to provide better information regarding Retail (Grocery) products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Products dominated business model
– Even though Jason has some of the most successful models in the Retail (Grocery) industry, this business model has made each new product launch extremely critical for continuous financial growth of the organization. Jason should strive to include more intangible value offerings along with its core products and services.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jason needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Retail (Grocery) industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jason can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jason is planning to shift buying processes online.
Jason Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jason are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jason has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Retail (Grocery) sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jason to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jason to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jason is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jason can utilize new technology in the field of Retail (Grocery) 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 Jason can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jason 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 Jason 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, Jason 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.
Loyalty marketing
– Jason 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.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions in Retail (Grocery) industry
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Jason in the Retail (Grocery) industry. Now Jason can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– consumer behavior has changed in the Retail (Grocery) industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Jason 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. Jason 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.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Jason 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 Retail (Grocery) industry.
Developing new processes and practices
– Jason can develop new processes and procedures in Retail (Grocery) 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.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jason can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jason operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Retail (Grocery) sector.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Jason to increase its market reach. Jason 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, Jason 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 Jason to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Threats Jason External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jason are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jason 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 Retail (Grocery) industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jason may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Retail (Grocery) 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 Jason.
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. Jason needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Retail (Grocery) industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jason 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.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Jason has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Retail (Grocery) industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Jason needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Retail (Grocery) 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.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Retail (Grocery) industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jason can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Environmental challenges
– Jason 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. Jason can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Retail (Grocery) industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jason is facing in Retail (Grocery) sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
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 Jason business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jason 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 Jason prominent markets.
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 Jason in the Retail (Grocery) sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry to Retail (Grocery) industry are lowering. It can presents Jason with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the Retail (Grocery) sector.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jason Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jason 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 Jason 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 Jason 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 Jason 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 Jason needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
